The BBC and the National Geographic Channel are making a documentary based on the controversial theories of a Wollongong academic, who claims that meteorites hit the earth every 1000 years.
New York-based production company Pangolin Pictures has been filming for the documentary this week at Greenfields Beach, near Vincentia, in a cave at Jones Beach, Kiama Downs and at Bass Point, Shellharbour.
The documentary, Ancient Mega-Tsunamis, is based on the theories of University of Wollongong associate professor Ted Bryant and the Holocene Impact Working Group, a collective of scientists from the United States, Russia, France, Ireland and Australia.
"Ted Bryant believes the meteor impact 500 years ago created mega-tsunamis that devastated coastal populations along the NSW coast as well as parts of New Zealand," the show's associate producer, Jackie Forster, said. "It is very controversial - NASA scientists say it happened 10,000 years ago, but this group believes it happened only 500 years ago."
The "geographical evidence" includes whirlpool bedrock at Bass Point "where the tsunami came in and tore out the bedrock in a cyclone movement", the tsunami-created Cathedral Rocks and the cave at Jones Beach as well as a collection of boulders at Greenfields Beach. The documentary will screen in Australia in late 2009.