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

Title	A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.
Authors	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
Magazine	Scientific Reports
Date	09/20/2021
DOI	10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3
Introduction	Evidence indicates that approximately 3 600 years ago (~1650 BCE), a cosmic airburst devastated Tall el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age urban centre situated in the southern Jordan Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea. This airburst event surpassed the magnitude of the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Russia, where a bolide estimated at 50 metres wide detonated with energy over 1 000 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The destruction layer across the city, approximately 1.5 metres thick and rich in carbon and ash, contains high concentrations of shocked quartz (5–10 GPa), melted pottery and mudbricks, diamond-like carbon, soot, iron- and silicon-rich spherules, calcium carbonate spherules derived from melted plaster, and melted platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite, and quartz. Heating experiments confirm temperatures exceeding 2 000 °C during the event. The airburst caused widespread urban devastation, collapsing over 12 metres of the 4-to-5-storey palace complex and the substantial 4-metre-thick mudbrick rampart. It also resulted in severe skeletal fragmentation and disarticulation among nearby human remains. A subsequent influx of salt, around 4 wt.%, led to hypersalinity, severely hindering agriculture and precipitating a 300-600-year abandonment of approximately 120 regional settlements within a 25-km radius. Tall el-Hammam might represent the second oldest city or town obliterated by a cosmic airburst or impact, following Abu Hureyra, Syria, and potentially the earliest location associated with an oral tradition subsequently documented (Genesis). Airbursts of Tunguska scale represent a significant contemporary hazard capable of obliterating entire cities and regions.
Quote	Ted E. Bunch, Malcolm A. LeCompte and A. Victor Adedeji et al. A Tunguska-sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea. Sci Rep. 2021. Vol. 11. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3
Element	Carbon (C) , Silicon (Si) , Calcium (Ca) , Platinum (Pt) , Iridium (Ir) , Nickel (Ni) , Silver (Ag) , Zirconium (Zr) , Chromium (Cr) , Oxygen (O)
Materials	Crystals
Topics	Structural Materials , Environmental and Green Materials , Computational Materials Science
Industry	Agriculture , Research & Laboratory

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