I have some questions with regards to meteorites hitting the ocean and it's ecological effect. What if a meteorite an m-class (composed mostly of iron), were to hit the ocean, the mass not enough to cause extinction, but just enough to cause ecological disaster in the oceans, would it explode in the oceans into tiny fragments and thus causing the oceans to turn red? Would this event kill sea creatures at an alarming rate? Would it also cause trapped concentrated carbon dioxide in the oceans to be released and suffocating people and animals in the land causing not only suffocation but nasty blister or burn marks on the body? ... Google on Lake Nyos disaster and it's effect and the amount of carbon dioxide in the oceans.
It appears that the levels of CO2 in those lakes are the result of what's beneath them. Pockets of magma are seeping the gas into these lakes, apparently. I don't think oceans have this same problem. The oceans might turn red in places, I suppose, if the iron concentration in the meteor was large enough, but I don't think all of the world's oceans would turn red. If the meteor was that big, we wouldn't be around to see the effects. Well, it would kill a bunch instantly...I suppose that qualifies as an "alarming rate". Whatever died afterwards would depend on what effects the event had on the planet. Which, I suppose, depends on the size of the thing.
But there are submarine volcanoes and ocean vents that produces enormous amount of CO2. It is well under control by the high pressure in the depths of the ocean. If theres increased activity of submarine volcanoes, the CO2 will accumulate to a critical level. All that is needed here is something to agitate it to produce a limnic eruption. For this case, a giant meteorite. A Lake Nyos event will most probably be observed here. True. However, volcanoes do produce Iron oxides during eruptions coloring the oceans to a reddish-brown hue. So, combining all these effect, the CO2 accumulation in the oceans, iron oxides ejected by the ocean volcanoes, an M-class meteorite hitting the oceans, will turn the oceans red and suffocating creatures in the sea. We will have a devastating ecological disaster if all these conditions are met. On the other hand, we don't even need a meteorite hitting the oceans. With increased volcanic activity, a great Earthquake will most probably occur and agitate the CO2 in the oceans causing limnic eruptions unheard of. The oceans will turn red. Ocean creatures will die, fishes floating about, land animals lying dead near the coastlines, people having severe sores and blisters due to the concentrated CO2 inhalation, vegetations, trees will die, and etc. This will cause pestilences and epidemics unheard of.
Well, if it is true that it would only take a subtle change in the situation to cause a massive "Lake Nyos" event, then I suppose we shouldn't bother worrying about it, because we can't control it. And I think if the oceans did emit the same gasses that Nyos did, we'd see far more than coastline animals and vegitation dying. It would probably result in millions of Human deaths. Consider how many died as the result of one lake, and extrapolate that to a sizeabale chunk of ocean, especially if the event were to happen close to shore. It would be devestating. But again, is there really any sense to worrying about it? Meteor impacts and volcanic activity are things beyond our control.
That it would. If you've ever seen the movie Deep Impact, that's the type it would cause; they listed the one in the movie at about 400m tall. The wave in the movie towered over the NYC skyscrapers as it approached the shore, and toppled them over like Tinkertoys when it hit. I just double checked some sites and the simulation they did would only produce a wave about 120m high rather than the 400m high wave in the movie; smaller but would still pack quite a deadly, catastrophic punch.
It's beyond our control, true. I'm just making a study on what will happen if these effects were to occur, whether it is possible or not. We can't really do anything about this if this happens, but, we can save a lot of lives. Just have to move more inland and I'm sure, food, water, and shelter will be the primary concern here.
