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Cosmogenic Mega-Tsunami in the Australia Region: Are They Supported by Aboriginal and Maori Legends?

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Cosmogenic Mega-Tsunami in the Australia Region: Are They Supported by Aboriginal and Maori Legends? University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive) Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health 8-2-2007 Cosmogenic mega-tsunami in the Australia region: are they supported by Aboriginal and Maori legends? Edward A. Bryant University of Wollongong, [email protected] G. Walsh Takarakka Rock Art Research Centre D. Abbott Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, UK Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers Part of the Life Sciences Commons, Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Bryant, Edward A.; Walsh, G.; and Abbott, D.: Cosmogenic mega-tsunami in the Australia region: are they supported by Aboriginal and Maori legends? 2007. https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers/42 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Cosmogenic mega-tsunami in the Australia region: are they supported by Aboriginal and Maori legends? Abstract Mega-tsunami have affected much of the coastline of Australia over the past millennium. Such catastrophic waves have left an imprint consisting predominently of bedrock sculpturing of the rocky coastline and deposition of marine sediments to elevations reaching 130 mabove sea level. One of the largest of these events occurred in eastern Australia in the fifteenth century. This event may be related to the Mahuika impact crater found at 48.38 S, 166.48 E on the continental shelf 250 km south of New Zealand. A comet at least 500 m in diameter formed the crater. Maori and Aboriginal legends allude to significant cosmogenic ve ents in the region, while Aboriginal legends about tsunami are common along the eastern Australian coast. Evidence for legends that could describe the impact of a cosmogenic tsunami also exists in NW Australia. Here geological evidence of a single megatsunami as recent as in the seventeenth century covers 1500 km of coastline. We term this event Wandjina after the artwork related to the legends. More attention should be given to oral traditions in searching globally for other sites of significant mega-tsunami. Keywords tsunami, legends, Australia, comet, geological evidence Disciplines Life Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details This book chapter was originally published as Bryant, EA, Walsh, G and Abbott, D, Cosmogenic mega- tsunami in the Australia region: are they supported by Aboriginal and Mairo legends?, in Piccardi, L and Masse, WB (eds), Myth and Geology, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 273, 2007, 203–214. Copyright The Geological Society of London. Original journal available here. This book chapter is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers/42 Cosmogenic mega-tsunami in the Australia region: are they supported by Aboriginal and Maori legends? E. BRYANT1, G. WALSH2 & D. ABBOTT3 1Science Faculty Office, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, 2522 (e-mail: [email protected]) 2TAKARAKKA Rock Art Research Centre, 36 Bonros Place, The Gap, Queensland, Australia 4061 3Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Route 9W Abstract: Mega-tsunami have affected much of the coastline of Australia over the past millennium. Such catastrophic waves have left an imprint consisting predominently of bedrock sculpturing of the rocky coastline and deposition of marine sediments to elevations reaching 130 m above sea level. One of the largest of these events occurred in eastern Australia in the fifteenth century. This event may be related to the Mahuika impact crater found at 48.38 S, 166.48 E on the continental shelf 250 km south of New Zealand. A comet at least 500 m in diameter formed the crater. Maori and Aboriginal legends allude to significant cosmogenic events in the region, while Aboriginal legends about tsunami are common along the eastern Australian coast. Evidence for legends that could describe the impact of a cosmogenic tsunami also exists in NW Australia. Here geological evidence of a single mega- tsunami as recent as in the seventeenth century covers 1500 km of coastline. We term this event Wandjina after the artwork related to the legends. More attention should be given to oral traditions in searching globally for other sites of significant mega-tsunami. Then the sky moved ...heaved and billowed and tumbled and would also have injected billions of tonnes of tottered. The moon rocked. The stars tumbled and clattered water into the atmosphere as superheated vapour and fell one against the other ...The great star groups were that would have fallen subsequently as torrential scattered, and many of them, loosened from their holds, came rain that would have exceeded historical levels flashing to the earth. They were heralded by a huge mass, red and produced catastrophic flooding. Research and glowing, that added to the number of falling stars by bursting with a deafening roar and scattering in a million pieces along the east coast of Australia since 1989 which were molten ...Burragorang/Illawarra legend (Peck (Bryant 2001; Bryant & Nott 2001) indicates that 1938, p. 202–203) a mega-tsunami struck and eroded the shores of He had never before seen the sea, and he did not know what it Lord Howe Island and the rocky coastline of was. He believed it to be a great sky ...and that the sky had fallen New South Wales over a distance of 600 km down .... It was that a great ancestor had left the earth and had around AD 1500 (Fig. 1a). A comet impact in the gone up into the sky .... He tried to return but the hole that he region is the most likely cause of such a large and had made was closed up. Yet he did not give up hope, and by widespread event. The location of a possible beating upon it he loosened it and it fell. What Makes the Waves impact has recently been discovered (Fig. 1b, c), (Peck 1938, p. 119) lying in 300 m depth of water on the continental The Moa disappeared after the coming of Tamaatea who set shelf 250 km south of New Zealand at 48.38 S, fire to the land. The fire was not the same as our fire but embers 166.48 E (Abbott et al. 2003). The crater is 20 km sent by Rongi [the sky] (Hill 1913, p. 331) in diameter and could have been produced by a These legends—the first two Aboriginal from the comet 0.5–1.05 km in size travelling at a speed of coast of New South Wales south of Sydney and 51 km s21 (calculations based on Marcus et al. the third Maori from New Zealand (Fig. 1)— 2005). When it struck, it would have generated an describe natural events or processes with a cosmic earthquake with a magnitude of 8.2 on the Richter origin not usually invoked as being significant in scale. The lack of sediment that normally settles the modern geological literature. If the large over time from the ocean suggests that the crater object in the Burragorang legend had struck the is less than 1000 years old. The comet has been ocean, it would have had the potential to generate named Mahuika after the Maori God of fire. Tektites a regionally devastating tsunami. The impact found in sediments to the SE indicate a trajectory for From:PICCARDI,L.&MASSE, W. B. (eds) Myth and Geology. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 273, 203–214. 0305-8719/07/$15.00 # The Geological Society of London 2007. 204 120° 140° 160° 180° 0° 140° 160° 180° Kimberley Glasshouse Mtns Cape Leveque Australia Cairns -30° Wilcannia Lord Howe Island -20° Sydney Bass Pt. Australia Bombo Tasman North Island Kangaroo Tura Pt. Sea New -40° Island New Sydney Zealand Zealand Tapanui -40° Tasman South Island Sea Stewart Island -50° Mahuika Comet Stewart Impact Site Is. (b) E. BRYANT Areas with published signatures of mega-tsunami (a) -60° 166° 167° 168° 169° ET AL. 122° 124° 126° 128° -46° Invercargill -14° Cape Voltaire Mason Bay -47° Kalumburu Walcott Inlet Stewart Cape Island -16° Leveque Kununurra inferred path based on tektites -48° Snares Islands Mahuika impact crater Broome -18° (d) (c) -49° Fig. 1. Location maps (a) Australia and New Zealand; (b) Tasman Sea coastline; (c) Mahuika Impact area; and (d) the Kimberley. AUSTRALIAN COMETS, TSUNAMI AND LEGENDS 205 this comet from the NW, across the east coast 70 km south of Sydney, tsunami overwashed a of Australia (Matzen et al. 2003). If the recent 40 m high headland. The wave separated from the age of the event—which is yet to be confirmed by headland and plunged back to the ocean surface radiocarbon dating—were correct, Aborigines in 100–200 m into a bay on the lee side. Profuse Australia and Maori in New Zealand would have amounts of coarse sediment dropped from the observed this comet’s dying moments. airborne flow into the bay under gravity (Fig. 2). The purpose of this paper is twofold: to elaborate Evidence of disturbed Aboriginal occupation on the rich, indigenous oral history of the region to ‘silcrete hand axes and shaped blades’ has been show that a recent cosmogenic mega-tsunami poss- found on the lee side of headlands along this coast ibly occurred and to use similar types of oral history (Bryant 2001). Aborigines at these locations in the Kimberley region of NW Australia to identify initially would have heard, but not seen, the other mega-tsunami in the Australian region. tsunami approaching. Their first indication of disas- ter would have been when they looked up and saw the ocean dropping on them from the sky as the Legends associated with comets tsunami wave surged over headlands. and tsunami Additional physical and legendary evidence of major comet and tsunami impacts exists in SE Aboriginal legends Australia.
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