chesapeake bay impact crater

Chesapeake Crater. 4590, doi: 10.1016/S0037-0738(96)00048-6, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0037073896000486, Poag C. W., Koeberl C., Reimold W. U. The entire bolide event, from initial impact to the termination of breccia deposition, lasted only a few hours or days. Crawford D. A. For this study, Biren worked with co-authors Wartho (now working at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel), Van Soest and Hodges to prepare samples for analysis and to date zircon crystals with the uranium-thorium-helium dating method. The presence of this hypersaline aquifer has some practical implications for ground-water management in the lower bay region. The shore of eastern North America, about where Richmond, Virginia is today, was covered with thick tropical rainforest, and the waters of the gently sloping continental shelf were rich with marine life that was depositing dense layers of lime from their microscopic shells. The largest impact crater in the United States, for instance, was unknown until the 1980s. Publications summary It complements NASA's recently announced mission to redirect an asteroid and send humans to study it. 7, p. A-119., Self-Trail J. M. (2003) Shock-Wave-Induced Fracturing of Calcareous Nano Fossils from the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater. The team poses with one of their biggest sponsors and supporters, Shebbie Jacques (bottom row, center). On the Delmarva Peninsula, over the deepest part of the crater, only the aquifers above the breccia are available for freshwater. About 35 million years ago, an asteroid hit the ocean off the East Coast of North America. Atflar. The dated crystals were tiny, about the thickness of a human hair. Web of Science: 19 . These crater-fill materials are preserved beneath a 235.6-m-thick (773.12-ft-thick) blanket of postimpact sediments. A brief introduction to the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater. An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. 2), and (2) marine seismic-reflection profiles collected by Texaco, Inc., the USGS, and the National Geographic Society. The space rock vaporized instantly, but its impact triggered a gargantuan tsunami, cast up a monsoon of shattered rocks and molten glass that spanned hundreds of miles and carved out the single largest crater in the United States the so-called Chesapeake Bay impact structure. It consists of a map in which users can select a location and model the local impacts of . That darkness of some adds to a particular population uncertainty for smaller Near-Earth Asteroids that are observed by ground-based telescopes, Mazanek says. Researchers have found clear traces of the impact and dated them for the first time using the uranium-thorium-helium technique. In this huge new reservoir, pore spaces are filled with briny water that is 1.5 times saltier than normal seawater. Earth impacts are a very infrequent event, but having a 100-year impact event, doesnt mean it will be another hundred years until it happens again. The presence of microtektites and shocked quartz increases the possibility that this is the source crater for the North American strewn field. Official websites use .gov Some of the faults appear to completely breach the confining unit over the saltwater reservoir. Known as the Chesapeake Bay Crater, this ancient impact crater wa. In The ICDP-USGS Deep Drilling Project in the Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure: Results from the Eyreville core holes, edited by Gohn G. S., Koeberl C., Miller K. G., and Reimold W. U. GSA Special Paper 458. The structure and geometry of the crater were determined by seismic profiling from ships in the bay. The deep crater, 24mi (38km) across, is surrounded by a flat-floored terrace-like ring trough with an outer edge of collapsed blocks forming ring faults. planar deformation features in quartz (up to 5 sets); ballen quartz; impactor components in target materials. [7], The continual slumping of the rubble within the crater has affected the flow of the rivers and shaped the Chesapeake Bay. The late Eocene Chesapeake Bay impact structure (CBIS) on the Atlantic margin of Virginia ( Fig. An asteroid struck the East Coast of North America 35 million years ago. While attempting to keep up with research from down under, Mazanek keeps his focus on remaining threats. The Saricicek howardite fall in Turkey: Source crater of HED meteorites The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was created 35 million years ago when a large asteroid hit the eastern shore of what we call today north America. Edit. All structured data from the file namespace is available under the Creative Commons CC0 License; all unstructured text is available under the Creative Commons . "Studies of the Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure - The USGS-NASA Langley Corehole, Hampton, Virginia, and Related Coreholes and Geophysical Surveys." The Virginia impact site, called the Chesapeake Bay Crater, is the largest known impact site in the United States and the sixth largest in the world, said Gerald Johnson, professor. [5] The sedimentary walls of the crater progressively slumped in, widened the crater, and formed a layer of huge blocks on the floor of the ring-like trough. It is three times larger than any other U.S. crater and is the sixth largest crater known on the planet. Small pieces of the deeply buried granitic basement rocks were scattered throughout the rubble and contained shocked quartz and melted grains, which confirm an impact. TheLangleycorehole is locatedinthe southwestern part of the crater's annular trough. Researchers have found clear traces of the impact and dated them for the first time using the uranium-thorium-helium technique. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, Volume 30, p. A-279. The Chesapeake Bay Bolide: Modern Consequences of an Ancient Cataclysm USGS Coastal & Marine Geology Program, Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem History and Change USGS, The Chesapeake Bay: Geologic Product of Rising Sea Level - USGS Fact Sheet 102-98 USGS Coastal & Marine Geology Program, Earth Impact Database University of New Brunswick Department of Geology, National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationU.S. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. (2009) to about 85 km diameter, with a ~40 km diameter central uplift. pp. Chemical and isotopic data indicate that saline ground water of theVirginiainland saltwater wedge or bulge is a mixture of freshwater and seawater, and evidence for a mixing zone at the crater's outer margin supports the concept of differential flushing of residual seawater to create the bulge. 317348., http://specialpapers.gsapubs.org/content/458, Collins G. S., Wnnemann K. (2005) How big was the Chesapeake Bay impact? 3). In this case, the researchers used a dating technique called uraniumthoriumhelium dating, which looks at how radioactive isotopes, or versions, of uranium and thorium decay into helium. 12631266, doi:10.1126/science.271.5253.1263, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/271/5253/1263, Lee S. R., Horton Jr. J. W., Walker R. J. Powars, D.S., 2000, The effects of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater on the geologic framework and the correlation of hydrogeologic units of Southeastern Virginia, south of the James River: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1622, 53 p. Horton, J. Wright, Jr., Powars, David S., and Gohn, Gregory S., 2005, Studies of the Chesapeake Bay impact structure : The USGS-NASA Langley corehole, Hampton, Virginia, and related coreholes and geophysical surveys: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1688, 464 p., 2 plates. It is one of the best-preserved "wet-target" impact craters in the world.[3]. 819-833.. There are also several schools of thought about the specific type of impactor that created the crater -- an asteroid, a comet, or a fragment of a larger NEO that may have also been responsible for the Toms Canyon impact in New Jersey and possibly the Popigai crater in Siberia, Russia. Other U.S. competitors included teams from the California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, the University of California Berkeley, the Ohio State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Florida and Texas A&M University. Evidence for high salinity of Early Cretaceous sea water from the One of the largest impact craters on the planet is located not too far from Washington D.C. The crater was then buried by additional sedimentary beds, which accumulated during the following 35 million years. These zircons were lodged in a sediment core taken from roughly 2,150 feet (655 meters) below the Atlantic Ocean. The Chesapeake Bay crater. The effects of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater on the geological Powars D. S., Poag C. W., Mixon R. B. Location of bolide impact and of shoreline when bolide hit. In a recent study of ocean sediment cores taken almost 250 miles (400 km) northeast of the impact site, researchers found traces of radioactive debris dating to the time of the strike, providing fresh evidence of the impact's age and destructive power. These faults are another result of the subsidence of the breccia. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Volume 26, p. A152.. July 1, 1999 View Document This report documents the highly variable structure, stratigraphy, and buried topography of the outer rim of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater created by its impact and burial. Poag C. W., Koeberl C., Reimold W. U. ISBN-10: 3540404414; ISBN-13: 978-3540404415; doi: 10.1017/S0016756805260430. Possible Tektite Source Craters | Jackson School Museum of Earth History Some objects are black as coal and some are white as chalk, Mazanek said. The reflectiveness makes them easy or difficult to locate.. Key to our investigation were zircon or to be more precise: zirconium silicate crystals that we found in the oceanic sediments of a borehole, which is located almost 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of the impact site, in the Atlantic Ocean, says co-author Wartho, who began the study when she was a lab manager at the Mass Spectrometry Lab at ASU. Visit our corporate site. The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was hidden beneath the muddy waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean for about 35 million years. Horton, J.W., Jr., and Izett, G.A., 2005; Horton et al., 2009; Bartosova et al., 2009; Vanko, 2009. Its like a coin toss. Even though its a 50-50 heads or tails on average, it could be heads ten times in a row or tails ten times in a row.. These cross sections are tied into the geologic framework of the lower York-James Peninsula as presented in the first report in the series, Professional Paper 1612, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive Reston, VA 20192, The effects of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater on the geologic framework and the correlation of hydrogeologic units of southeastern Virginia, south of the James River. (1993) The Chesapeake Bay impact crater; Stratigraphic and seismic evidence (abstract). Johnson stated that the Chesapeake Bay itself did not form until after the Wisconsin glaciation ice sheet melted 18,000 years ago. Powars D. S., Bruce T. S. (1999) The effects of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater on the geological framework and correlation of hydrogeologic units of the lower York-James Peninsula, Virginia. Edwards L. E., J. W. Horton, Jr., and G. S. Gohn. Horton Jr. J. W., Aleinikoff J. N., Kunk M. J., Naeser C. W., Naeser N. D. (2005) Petrography, structure, age, and thermal history of granitic Coastal Plain basement in the: Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure, USGS-NASA Langley core, Hampton, Virginia, in Studies of the Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure The USGS-NASA Langley Corehole, Hampton, Virginia, and related coreholes and geological surveys, edited by: Horton Jr, J. W., Powars, D. S., and Gohn, G. S., B1B29, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1688. In place of those aquifers, there is now a single huge reservoir with a volume of 4,000 cubic kilometers. The annular trough formed partly by collapse of weak sediments, which expanded the structure to ?? The location of the crater in Chesapeake Bay. (abstract), European Science Foundation: Impact Programme,, Horton, J.W., Jr., and Izett, G.A., 2005; Crystalline-rock ejecta and shocked minerals of the Chesapeake Bay impact structure, USGS-NASA Langley Core, Hampton, Virginia, with supplemental constraints on the age of the impact, in Horton et al., Editors, Studies of the Chesapeake Bay Impact StructureThe USGS-NASA Langley Corehole, Hampton, Virginia, and related Coreholes and Geophysical Surveys, USGS Prof. Paper 1688., Lee S. R., Horton Jr. J. W., Walker R. J. Photo courtesy of Desert WAVE Gohn, Gregory S., Sanford, Ward E., Powars, David S., Horton, J. Wright, Jr., Edwards, Lucy E., Morin, Roger H., Self-Trail, Jean M., 2007, Site Report for USGS test holes drilled at Cape Charles, Northampton County, Virginia, in 2004: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2007-1094, 22 p. USGS Professional Paper 1612 Figure 1. Dingler, G. S. Gohn, J. S. Schindler, G.H. View. Boulder, Colorado. Johnson, About 35 million years ago, a large comet or meteor slammed into the shallow shelf on the western margin of the Atlantic Ocean, creating the Chesapeake Bay impact crater. Web content comm administrator, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, 480-727-1957 About 10,000 years ago, however, the ice sheets began to melt rapidly, causing sea level to rise and flood the shelf and the coastal river valleys. How many 'city killer' asteroids narrowly miss Earth each year? Desert WAVE was created by a partnership between The Polytechnic School, one the six Fulton Schools and Si Se Puede Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources for underserved communities. The Chesapeake Bay impact structure is associated with the North American tektite strewn field. The late Eocene Chesapeake Bay impact structure on the Atlantic margin of Virginia is the largest known impact crater in the United States, and it may be the Earth's best preserved example of a large impact crater that formed on a predominantly siliciclastic continental shelf. One of the locations of highest relative sea-level rise is at Hampton Roads (the lower part of the James River), located over the crater rim. ASU researchers study largest impact crater in the US - ASU News The impact crater created a long-lasting topographic depression which helped predetermine the course of local rivers and the eventual location of the Chesapeake Bay. 1). Much of the work was summarized in a major volume, Gohn et al. Desert WAVE prepared for the event by meeting weekly for several months with their mentors, engineering lecturer Daniel Frank and Faridodin Lajvardi of the Si Se Puede Foundation. Discovery of the giant crater revised our understanding of Atlantic Coastal Plain evolution. 275-285., http://palaios.geoscienceworld.org/content/18/3/275.abstract, Elbra T., Kontny A., Pesonen L. J. In 1993, data from oil exploration revealed the extent of the crater. Small pieces of the deeply buried granitic basement rocks also are scattered throughout the rubble and contain shocked quartz and melted grains, which confirm an impact. [3] Prices for a three-day cruise in 2010 range from $1,400 to $2,560, depending on the size of the boat chartered. A closer examination showed that the zircons also bore a cloudy appearance and deformed surface, two signs the minerals were kicked through the air and water by a great impact. GSA Special Paper 458. Chesapeake Bay impact structure: Morphology, crater fill, and relevance Studies of crater materials in the CBIS provide insights into processes of crater expansion on Mars and their links to volatiles. Boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater. Boulder, Colorado: Geological Society of America. ?85 km in diameter. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. The Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater. As Johnson explained, the object vaporized, only leaving behind changes to the atmosphere, ocean, land and biosphere. K1-K32., McDonald I., Bartosova K., Koeberl C. (2009) Search for a meteoritic component in impact breccia from the Eyreville core, Chesapeake Bay impact structure: Considerations from platinum group element contents, Special Paper of the Geological Society of America, Issue 458, pp. Latest Earthquakes | Live WebChatShare Social Media. As he explained, the focus of current observation efforts is to find the NEOs 140 meters (roughly 460 feet) or larger. ODP 1073 on the map refers to the ocean drilling project site where the sample material for this study was collected. See a summary of publications on this topic listed here and under the "Publications" tab. (2004) The Chesapeake Bay Crater: Geology and Geophysics of a Late Eocene Submarine Impact Structure, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2004. The estimated 3km bolide excavated an 85km depression believed to be 1.3km deep. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. USS Missouri (BB-63) is an Iowa-class battleship built for the United States Navy (USN) in the 1940s and is currently a museum ship.Completed in 1944, she is the last battleship commissioned by the United States. Published November 21, 2013. Seismic profiles across the crater show many faults that cut the sedimentary beds above the breccia and extend upward toward the bay floor (fig. 7, p. A119., Johnson G. H., Powars D. S., Bruce T. S., Vaughn A. W, Lucey J. K., Kruse S. E. (1998) Relationship of Yorktown Formation lithofacies to post-impact deformation on the terrace zone, southeastern Virginia (abstract). The inner basin includes a central uplift surrounded by a series of concentric valleys and ridges. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1612, 82 p. 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive Reston, VA 20192, Studies of the Chesapeake Bay impact structure - Introduction and discussion, J. Wright Horton,, David S. Powars, Gregory Gohn, Geological Survey Professional Paper (United States). Chesapeake Bay impact crater - Wikimedia Commons The top of this granite at 626.3 m (2,054.7 ft) depth is overlain by 390.6 m (1,281.6 ft) ofimpact-modified andimpact-generated siliciclastic sediments.

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