Mahuika crater

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mahuika crater is a disputed submarine bolide impact crater, 20 ± 2 kilometers wide and over 153 meters deep, on the New Zealand continental shelf at 48°18′S 166°24′ECoordinates: 48°18′S 166°24′E, named for the Māori god of fire. It was discovered by Dallas Abbott and her colleagues from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of the Columbia University.

Around the year 1400, the natives of New Zealand abandoned their southern coastal settlements. It has been supposed that an earthquake-induced tsunami was the cause. However, such a tsunami would have to have been some five times larger than any other in the area to account for the geological evidence, both in New Zealand and on Australia's east coast. Abbott et al. (2003) suggests that a bolide impact would explain both the geological and anthropological evidence better than an earthquake.

Gavin Menzies, author of the book 1421: the Year China Discovered the New World, suggests that the bolide was a fragment of Comet Napier and Clube and that it struck during October 1422, the exact time necessary to wipe out the portion of his hypothetical Chinese exploratory fleet commanded by Zhou Man.

However, the 1422 A.D. date, as argued by Menzies, of this impact is disputed by Abbott et al. (2005). Based on elemental anomalies, fossils, and minerals, which are interpreted to be derived from the impact, found in an ice core from the Siple Dome in Antarctica, Abbott et al. (2005) argues that the impact, which created the Mahuika crater occurred in 1443 A.D.

[edit] References

Abbott, D.H., P. Biscaye, J. Cole-Dai, and D. Breger, 2005, Evidence from an Ice Core of a Large Impact Circa 1443 A.D., American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #PP31C-05.
Abbott, D.H., A. Matzen, E.A. Bryant, and S.F. Pekar, 2003, Did a bolide impact cause catastrophic tsunamis in Australia and New Zealand? Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. 35:168.