Imagine that ancient Mars is covered by the ocean. Every three million years or so, a huge meteorite crashes into the water and generates a huge wave 400 feet high. A breaking wave sweeps along the coastline and sweeps hundreds of miles until it dries inside the country. If this scenario is true, some strange elevations that scientists discovered while searching for an ancient coastline on Mars can explain this.
"Our discovery offers a simple solution to this problem: the spread of huge tsunamis in a wide range of heights probably characterizes the coastlines of the early Martian oceans," said study lead author Alexis Rodriguez, senior researcher at the Institute for Planetary Studies.
Digital map showing the heights of potential tsunami fields on Mars (right)
Mapping tsunami events is a very laborious process. Since these events are very ancient, tsunami footprints are slowly obliterated by Martian erosion.
The team has already determined that there were two mega-tsunamis in the northern highlands of Mars, where sand was noted, which was probably brought there by these events.
