Evidence of Meteorite Disaster

A meteorite that fell into the Atlantic 40 million years ago created a huge wave that devastated the Virginia coast, a geologist said last week. “It appears that an enormous wave, perhaps initially hundreds to thousands of feet high, gouged out a 200-foot-deep Connecticut-sized area in the coastal region and filled it with a spectacular assortment of large boulders and shock-altered minerals,” said C. Wylie Poag, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher.

Poag, who presented his findings at the Geological Society of America meeting in San Diego, said the remains from the impact lie buried 1,200 feet beneath the Chesapeake Bay and southeastern Virginia. Evidence of the phenomenon turned up in 1983, when Poag was involved in the discovery of a thin layer of glassy impact fragments about 600 feet below the ocean floor, 90 miles east of Atlantic City, N.J.

USGS scientists led by Poag later found a similar impact-wave deposit beneath the Eastern Shore town of Exmore, between the ocean and the bay. The Exmore deposit was the same age as the offshore layer but was much thicker--200 feet--than the 2-inch ocean deposit.

Additional drilling in the region conducted by the State Water Control Board of Virginia led Poag to conclude that the material covers up to 9,000 square miles. The crater from the impact has not been found.