One Astronomer's Noise

Discovery.com reports that NYC may have suffered a major tsunami due to an asteroid impact over 2,000 years ago. Of course, it wasn’t a city then. But evidence in the form of little carbon spherules found in the silt near the Hudson River give clue to a giant impact. Too bad that the city is so overgrown that much of the natural land is covered up now, so it’ll be hard to find more data. Hence, going to Long Island and New Jersey coastlines to find evidence! And, the search is on for an actual impact crater that would give more credence to this hypothesis.

But can you imagine, 20-meter high waves over Manhattan? My poor hometown of Staten Island would have been completely swamped! More reminders that despite the masking effects of our planet’s geologic processes, our little home has had a violent past.

(I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Death from the Skies! which I finally ordered this week. I was going to wait and put it on my holiday wishlist, but ah, what the heck.)

UPDATE: Should read before posting… fixed sentence fragment.