1,000-Foot Waves? Ancient Earth Had Unfathomably Big Surf

Originally posted on SURFER | By Dashel Pierson | Last updated Mar 11, 2025 6:20 PM ET

You know how some people think they were born in the wrong decade or generation? Like those longing for the free-love counterculture of the 1960s? What about the wrong geological eon?

Don’t hear that one too much. Not many humans walking around in the Jurassic period.

Besides, ancient earth was likely a hostile place due to a number of factors – the extreme weather, predatory dinosaurs, and no Starbucks on every block. Pretty rough. Additionally, during the age of Pangea, the oceans were quite different. There was one super ocean, Panthalassa, which stretched twice the size of the present-day Pacific, and produced, probably, the largest waves in history.

How? Well, a number of factors, as outlined by this armchair scientist video above.

First, due to Panthalassa’s girth, waves had more space to percolate, to grow before hitting land. Next storm systems were much more intense on the primordial earth, creating larger swells. And finally, ocean trenches that magnify waves were much deeper. Thus, biggest waves ever.

The video explains: “If we combine all these factors – an uninterrupted super ocean, extreme global heat, planet-wide storm cycles, and underwater trenches acting as amplifiers – and you have the ultimate wave-making machine, a force of nature capable of producing swells beyond human comprehension. Ever wonder what happens when mother nature throws everything she’s got at the ocean? In Pangea, that wasn’t just a possibility; that was inevitable.”

How big are we talkin’?

“The same way Nazare’s trench amplifies waves today, Panthalassa’s trenches crank that effect up exponentially…then boom. A meteor strike. Geological evidence suggests that massive impact and underwater landslides could have triggered tsunamis up to thousands of feet high. That’s not just a wave. That’s a moving skyscraper of water. The result? The biggest wave to ever exist.”

On second thought, probably a good thing humans weren’t around for that.

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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