A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea

Ted E Bunch; Malcolm A LeCompte; A Victor Adedeji; James H Wittke; T David Burleigh; Robert E Hermes; Charles Mooney; Dale Batchelor; Wendy S Wolbach; Joel Kathan; Gunther Kletetschka; Mark C L Patterson; Edward C Swindel; Timothy Witwer; George A Howard; Siddhartha Mitra; Christopher R Moore; Kurt Langworthy; James P Kennett; Allen West; Phillip J Silvia

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3

A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea

Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 20;11(1):18632. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3.

Authors

Ted E Bunch¹, Malcolm A LeCompte², A Victor Adedeji³, James H Wittke¹, T David Burleigh⁴, Robert E Hermes⁵, Charles Mooney⁶, Dale Batchelor⁷, Wendy S Wolbach⁸, Joel Kathan⁸, Gunther Kletetschka^{9

10}, Mark C L Patterson¹¹, Edward C Swindel¹², Timothy Witwer¹³, George A Howard¹⁴, Siddhartha Mitra¹⁵, Christopher R Moore¹⁶, Kurt Langworthy¹⁷, James P Kennett¹⁸, Allen West¹⁹, Phillip J Silvia²⁰

Affiliations

¹ Geology Program, School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA.
² Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research, Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth City, NC, 27909, USA.
³ Department of Natural Sciences, Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth City, NC, 27909, USA.
⁴ Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, New Mexico Institute On Mining & Technology, Socorro, NM, 87801, USA.
⁵ Los Alamos National Laboratory (Retired), Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
⁶ Analytical Instrumentation Facility, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA.
⁷ EAG Laboratories, Eurofins Materials Science, Raleigh, NC, 27606, USA.
⁸ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, 60614, USA.
⁹ Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 903 Koyukuk Drive, College, AK, 99775, USA.
¹⁰ Faculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, Prague, 12843, Czech Republic.
¹¹ Southern Research Institute, 757 Tom Martin Drive, Birmingham, AL, 35211, USA.
¹² US Navy, NAVFAC Mid-Atlantic Region, NS Norfolk, VA, 23511, USA.
¹³ Comet Research Group, Prescott, AZ, 86301, USA.
¹⁴ Restoration Systems, L.L.C., Raleigh, NC, 27604, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Geological Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858, USA.
¹⁶ Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, New Ellenton, SC, 29809, USA.
¹⁷ CAMCOR, University of Oregon, 1443 E 13th Ave, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA.
¹⁸ Department of Earth Science and Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.
¹⁹ Comet Research Group, Prescott, AZ, 86301, USA. CometResearchGroup@gmail.com.
²⁰ College of Archaeology, Trinity Southwest University, Albuquerque, NM, 87109, USA.

Abstract

We present evidence that in ~ 1650 BCE (~ 3600 years ago), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age city in the southern Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead Sea. The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a ~ 50-m-wide bolide detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A city-wide ~ 1.5-m-thick carbon-and-ash-rich destruction layer contains peak concentrations of shocked quartz (~ 5-10 GPa); melted pottery and mudbricks; diamond-like carbon; soot; Fe- and Si-rich spherules; CaCO₃ spherules from melted plaster; and melted platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite, and quartz. Heating experiments indicate temperatures exceeded 2000 °C. Amid city-side devastation, the airburst demolished 12+ m of the 4-to-5-story palace complex and the massive 4-m-thick mudbrick rampart, while causing extreme disarticulation and skeletal fragmentation in nearby humans. An airburst-related influx of salt (~ 4 wt.%) produced hypersalinity, inhibited agriculture, and caused a ~ 300-600-year-long abandonment of ~ 120 regional settlements within a > 25-km radius. Tall el-Hammam may be the second oldest city/town destroyed by a cosmic airburst/impact, after Abu Hureyra, Syria, and possibly the earliest site with an oral tradition that was written down (Genesis). Tunguska-scale airbursts can devastate entire cities/regions and thus, pose a severe modern-day hazard.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't