Perhaps the largest earthquake in human history occurred 3800 years ago

Around 1800 BC, a devastating tsunami wiped out everything unfortunate enough to be on the coast of Chile. The devastation was so severe that it frightened the hunters and gatherers inside, where they stayed for a thousand years. Now, researchers have traced the signs of the earthquake that caused the tsunami, and they believe it may have been on the scale of the largest earthquake in recorded history.

Pablo de Bica. High coastal sediments with precipitated tsunami deposits consisting of shells and large pebbles. Image credits: University of Southampton. Forensic geology

The Earth may seem like a fixed place, but that’s only because we’re not looking at the right scale. Earth’s crust is made of solid plates (called tectonic plates) that move around, fed by currents within the mantle. These plates move around each other at a speed of a few centimeters per year – about the same speed as your nails. This may not sound like much, but give it enough time (millions of years) and the changes can be amazing.

The movement of these plates also causes earthquakes. Earthquakes can be especially devastating when plates move toward each other and collide. Chile is one of the regions most susceptible to this type of earthquake, and it is no coincidence that the largest earthquake in recorded history (the Valdivia earthquake) occurred in Chile.

The magnitude of the Valdivia earthquake reached 9.5, which was surprising to researchers at the time.

Professor James Goff, a visiting professor at the University of Southampton who co-authored a study, explained. “But now we’ve found evidence of a rupture about a thousand kilometers long off the coast of the Atacama Desert, and that’s a huge thing,” he continued.

But as it turns out, not only was such an earthquake possible – another one like it probably occurred relatively recently in Chile’s geological history.

The main clues to this ancient earthquake came from the tsunami evidence. When a massive earthquake displaces a large amount of water, it can cause a giant wave – a tsunami. Excavations at a 3,800-year-old site on the Chilean coast showed that hunter-gatherers had been destroyed by giant waves. In addition, researchers also found traces of a tsunami in the Atacama Desert.

Professor Goff explained that “the Atacama Desert is one of the most hostile and driest environments in the world, and finding evidence of tsunamis there has always been difficult.” However, we did find evidence of marine deposits and many monsters that would have lived quietly in the sea before being thrown inland. And we found all of these things very high and far from land, so it couldn’t have been a storm that put them there.”

Plate tectonics around South America. In Chile, the Nazca plate collides with the South American plate. Image via NOAA.

By analyzing this data and performing tsunami modeling studies, the team concluded that the event was caused by a massive 1,000-kilometre rupture along the Nazca and South American tectonic plates, suggesting that the earthquake may have been powerful. 9.5 and caused a huge tsunami.

The researchers explained that there were not many people living in the area. But those who were unfortunate enough that the tsunami trapped them were completely wiped out.

There is an important lesson to learn here. We know that earthquakes of this magnitude can happen in that area, and they may happen more often than we would like. If another such event happened now, it would be a disaster for the millions of people who live near the Chilean coast.

“The locals were left there with nothing,” Goff said. “Our archaeological work found that massive social disruption ensued as communities moved inland out of reach of the tsunami. It was more than 1,000 years before people returned to live on the coast again which is an astonishing amount of time given their dependence on the sea for food. It is likely that the traditions Handed down from generation to generation has fostered this resilient behaviour, although we won’t know for sure. This is the oldest example we found in the Southern Hemisphere where an earthquake and tsunami had a disastrous impact on people’s lives, and there is a lot to learn from this.”

The study was published in the journal Science.

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