The waves reaching the coast could reach a height of 4.5 kilometers when the asteroid hit.
66 million years ago, an asteroid estimated to be at least 10 kilometers wide hit the Earth, which according to the currently most accepted theory, as a result of its direct and indirect effects, was primarily responsible for the extinction of the living world of our planet at that time, the dinosaurs, and almost three quarters of the animal and plant species (scientific name Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event). The shock waves created by the collision caused global earthquakes and led to volcanic eruptions, the dust and smoke that fell back covered the surface for a long time. During the impact, a huge amount of dust, ash and steam, as well as gases from rocks, were released into the atmosphere. Due to the huge amount of dust entering the atmosphere, the amount of sunlight reaching the surface decreased significantly, which resulted in climate change and cooling.
The impact generated huge waves, the size of which dwarfs all tsunamis ever recorded in the history of mankind. The height of the giant waves when reaching the shore could reach a height of 1.6 to 4.5 kilometers. An international research group including two research laboratories of NOAA (Pacific Marine Environmental Lab and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab) studied the global effects of the tsunami caused by the asteroid with the help of numerical modeling and geological records verifying the model results. As a result of the work, an animation was made regarding the height and propagation of the waves, which can be viewed at the link below.
Snapshot from the simulation. The black spots mark the position of the landmasses at the time of the impact, approximately 66 million years ago. The short film can be viewed: NOAA Science On a Sphere
