Signs of Cosmic Splashes

The 14 November 2006 New York Times has an eye-opening article about recent research pointing to cosmic impacts that have sent mega-tsunamis over various places in geologically recent time. A small group of scientists has been poring over Google Earth looking for giant swash marks like these, in southern Madagascar. It's gratifying to see progress in the problem I laid out here nine years ago: "Impact mega-tsunamis must have wiped every kilometer of the whole world's coastline clean, probably more than once, in any given million years. And a million years is practically a geologic blink of the eye. The signs ought to be there, so we must go back to the outcrops and interrogate the rocks again."

_{Chevron dunes near Androka, Madagascar — Google Earth image}