About 35 million years ago, an asteroid or comet nucleus collided with Earth at the present mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The product of this environmental catastrophe, known as the Chesapeake Bay impact structure, is now concealed beneath sediments on the Atlantic continental margin. This 53-mile-wide feature is one of Earth’s largest and best-preserved examples of an impact crater that formed in a near-shore marine environment. It has profound influence on modern ground-water quality, notably salinity, in one of the fastest growing urban centers on the east coast. Drilling a mile-deep core hole and studies in geology, hydrology, geophysical imaging, computer modeling, and deep-biosphere microbiology provide insight into this catastrophic event, its consequences for life, ground-water resources, hazard implications, and significance for other planetary bodies.
This was the synopsis of the presentation made by Dr. Wright Horton, who graduated from Furman in 1972 and later earned a Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill. He has spent most of his career as a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). His interests include geology of the Appalachian Piedmont and Mountains, rocks buried under the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and meteorite impact craters. In connection with this talk, he served as project chief of the USGS Chesapeake Bay impact crater project and co-principal investigator of a related international deep drilling project.
This event was sponsored by Bartram Society and the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
