{"id":263876,"date":"2025-05-30T09:48:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T09:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/a-164-foot-tsunami-pushed-this-enormous-boulder-atop-a-cliff-in-tonga-7000-years-ago\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T09:48:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T09:48:43","slug":"a-164-foot-tsunami-pushed-this-enormous-boulder-atop-a-cliff-in-tonga-7000-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=263876","title":{"rendered":"A 164-Foot Tsunami Pushed This Enormous Boulder Atop a Cliff in Tonga 7,000 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The hulking rock, called Maka Lahi, is the size of a two-story house and sits on a 120-foot-tall cliff, covered in vegetation<\/h2>\n
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Sarah Kuta<\/a><\/p>\n

– Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Geoscientist\u00a0Martin K\u00f6hler stands in front of\u00a0Maka Lahi, which measures 46 feet by 39 feet by 22 feet\u2014about the same size as a two-story house.
\n Martin K\u00f6hler \/ The University of Queensland<\/span>
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At the top of a 120-foot-high cliff in Tonga sits a humongous rock\u2014and at more than 650 feet inland, it\u2019s staggeringly out of place. Now, scientists have modeled how this massive boulder could have ended up in such a strange location: a powerful tsunami<\/a> roughly 7,000 years ago. They describe the scenario in a new paper published in the journal Marine Geology<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just a boulder; it\u2019s the biggest wave-lifted boulder ever found on a cliff and the third largest boulder in the world, so it really needed gigantic forces to move it that far across such a high place,\u201d says lead author Martin K\u00f6hler<\/a>, a geoscientist at the University of Queensland in Australia, to New Scientist<\/em><\/a>\u2019s James Woodford.<\/p>\n

The hulking boulder is well-known to the people of Tonga, who call it Maka Lahi, or \u201cbig rock.\u201d In Tongan mythology, coastal boulders like Maka Lahi were deposited by the demigod Maui as he chased chickens between two islands. They are known as \u201cMaui throwing stones.\u201d<\/p>\n

But scientists only learned of Maka Lahi in 2024, while they were conducting field work on the southern side of Tongatapu, Tonga\u2019s largest and most populated island. They were looking for evidence of past tsunamis by examining coastal boulders that didn\u2019t seem to fit with their surroundings. Late in the afternoon on the last day of their trip, the scientists mentioned their project to some farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018Why aren\u2019t you looking at the much larger boulder farther inland?\u2019\u201d K\u00f6hler tells Yahoo News<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Michael Dahlstrom.<\/p>\n

When the farmers took the researchers to Maka Lahi, the team knew right away it was \u201ca major discovery,\u201d K\u00f6hler tells New<\/em> Scientist<\/em>. Before them, they saw an enormous limestone rock measuring 46 feet by 39 feet by 22 feet\u2014about the same size as a two-story house. The scientists estimated its weight to be more than 1,300 tons.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoulders this size are rare,\u201d says Ricardo Ramalho<\/a>, a geologist at Cardiff University in Wales who was not involved with the research, to the New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Katherine Kornei.<\/p>\n