Recent studies have documented a tsunami that occurred in 365 AD.

The last catastrophic tsunami occurred in Japan in 2011 when an earthquake, combined with a gigantic tsunami hit the Japanese coasts and endangered the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

Considered the most serious nuclear accident after the one that occurred in 1986 in Chernobyl, classified at level 7 of the INES scale, it was possible due to the presence of 14 meters high waves that hit the power plant.

In fact, the earthquake that preceded the tsunami had automatically shut down the reactors for a safety issue, which had to be powered by the cooling water anyway.

When the electric current was suspended, the diesel power generators came into operation which guaranteed the cooling processes of the reactors even if turned off.

After 40 minutes from the earthquake the tsunami arrived, which overcame the specially positioned barriers as they had been erected at a maximum height of 10 meters, thus allowing them to be crossed by the sea.

The water destroyed the emergency electrical system through the generators sending the reactors into meltdown and subsequently 4 explosions were created due to hydrogen leaks.

The bewildered world judged these calamities to be the result of the climate changes that our planet is experiencing, which bring tsunamis, torrential rains, droughts, cyclone and heat waves.

If in part we can say that today's climatic situation is also the result of irresponsible human behavior, extreme natural phenomena have recently been documented even in unsuspected times such as the one discovered by Dr. Poland of the CNR dating back to 365 AD.

A deposit of sediments up to 25 meters thick, present in the Ionian Sea, seems to be the result of a strong tsunami that occurred in 365 AD, originating in Crete and involving Calabria and Sicily.

The characteristics of this deposit made it possible to identify two other more ancient events that occurred about 15 and 40 thousand years ago. The research coordinated by Cnr-Ismar was published in Scientific Reports

A study conducted by the Institute of Marine Sciences of the National Research Council of Bologna (Cnr-Ismar) has reconstructed the traces of a tsunami that struck the coasts of the Mediterranean about 1600 years ago, including Sicily and southern Calabria.

The research concerns an abyssal area in the Ionian Sea, between Italy, Greece and Africa, where a deposit of marine sediments reaching 25 meters thick was deposited almost instantaneously by the catastrophic force of the currents induced by the wave of a tsunami. The study was published in Scientific Reports.

The Mediterranean Sea hosts two subduction systems along the boundary between the African and Eurasian plates that have produced strong earthquakes in the past often associated with tsunamis.

"Based on historical descriptions and the analysis of sediments taken from the seabed of the Ionian Sea, one of these events, which took place in 365 AD, affected a large geographical area including regions about 800 km from the source area located in Crete. ”, Explains Alina Polonia of Cnr-Ismar.

“The sediment samples analyzed made it possible to verify that the material that was in very low water conditions was torn from the coastal area and deposited at a depth of 4000 meters.

The tsunami wave produced multiple submarine landslides along a front of thousands of kilometers, from southern Italy to the African coast.

Currents have dragged coastal sediments into the abyssal depths even in the absence of canyons, probably through large tabular streams. This allowed the deposition of an extraordinary volume of sediments of over 800 km3 throughout the eastern Mediterranean ”.

Very similar processes were also described during the 2011 mega-tsunami that devastated the Japanese coast.

The characteristics of the deposit made it possible to identify two other more ancient events that represent the predecessors of that of Crete, allowing us to acquire useful elements for a more correct assessment of the tsunamigenic risk on our coasts.

“The study shows that a tsunami can dump significant volumes of sediment and organic carbon into the deep ocean, thus affecting the global geochemical cycle and seabed ecosystems,” concludes Poland.

"Understanding how mega-tsunamis are produced, and where they are most likely, requires a better understanding of secondary sedimentary processes such as instability of continental slopes, generation of submarine landslides and sea currents throughout the basin."

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.