Buried hundreds of feet beneath the Chesapeake Bay lies the sixth largest known crater on earth -- a crater created by a 2-mile-wide meteorite that slammed into the Atlantic Ocean 35 million years ago. The meteorite, moving nearly 60 times faster than a fired bullet, caused an impact more powerful than the combined explosion of every nuclear bomb on earth and blasted a crater in the crust of the earth thousands of feet deep and over 53 miles in diameter. This messenger from the past has only recently been explored and the information and consequences from that distant event have greatly affected hundreds of thousands of people living in southeastern Virginia today.
Copyright 2001, The Virginian-Pilot. Used with permission.
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Visit the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater Web Page
Selected Online Publications
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More USGS Online Publications Relating to the Impact
Bibliography of The Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure and Related Topics
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