[meteorite-list] 2004 MN4 size estimate

[Herbert Raab]

Marcin Cimala wrote:

> As You all see in TV, Indonesia and other countries was devastated by
> Tsunami produced by big Earthquake. How You think, what size of
> meteorite/asteroide can produce the same effects ?
> 10m? 50m ? Ofcourse, impact in the same place where was earthquake center.

I can't give a precise answert to that question, but I think that a 10m or 50m 
asteroid would be to small. You would probably need an asteroid in the 100m 
range to cause these effects over thousands of kilometers.

There is, however, a simulation of a 1.1km asteroid impacting ~500km before 
the US east coast. It generates Tsunamis up to >100m in height on the US 
coastline, and ~10m on the European coast. A graph showing this is available 
here:

  http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/1950da/Ward_Asphaug_fig2_martin-SMALL.jpg

The full paper (5.5MB pdf) can be downloaded here:

  http://es.ucsc.edu/~ward/papers/gji_final_35N.pdf

Best greetings,

  Herbert Raab