A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea
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Published:2021-09-20
Issue:1
Volume:11
Page:
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ISSN:2045-2322
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Container-title:Scientific Reports
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Sci Rep
Author:
Bunch Ted E.,LeCompte Malcolm A.,Adedeji A. Victor,Wittke James H.,Burleigh T. David,Hermes Robert E.,Mooney Charles,Batchelor Dale,Wolbach Wendy S.,Kathan Joel,Kletetschka Gunther,Patterson Mark C. L.,Swindel Edward C.,Witwer Timothy,Howard George A.,Mitra Siddhartha,Moore Christopher R.,Langworthy Kurt,Kennett James P.,West Allen,Silvia Phillip J.
Abstract
AbstractWe present evidence that in ~ 1650 BCE (~ 3600 years ago), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age city in the southern Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead Sea. The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a ~ 50-m-wide bolide detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A city-wide ~ 1.5-m-thick carbon-and-ash-rich destruction layer contains peak concentrations of shocked quartz (~ 5–10 GPa); melted pottery and mudbricks; diamond-like carbon; soot; Fe- and Si-rich spherules; CaCO3 spherules from melted plaster; and melted platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite, and quartz. Heating experiments indicate temperatures exceeded 2000 °C. Amid city-side devastation, the airburst demolished 12+ m of the 4-to-5-story palace complex and the massive 4-m-thick mudbrick rampart, while causing extreme disarticulation and skeletal fragmentation in nearby humans. An airburst-related influx of salt (~ 4 wt.%) produced hypersalinity, inhibited agriculture, and caused a ~ 300–600-year-long abandonment of ~ 120 regional settlements within a > 25-km radius. Tall el-Hammam may be the second oldest city/town destroyed by a cosmic airburst/impact, after Abu Hureyra, Syria, and possibly the earliest site with an oral tradition that was written down (Genesis). Tunguska-scale airbursts can devastate entire cities/regions and thus, pose a severe modern-day hazard.
Funder
Grantová Agentura České Republiky Comet Research Group
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Multidisciplinary
Reference202 articles.
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28 articles.
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