About 35 million years ago, the region now known as Hampton Roads was submerged under ocean waters, with the coastline situated dozens of miles to the west, toward Richmond.
During this time, although dinosaurs had long vanished, the ancient seas were vibrant with marine life, including ancient whales, sharks, and sea stars.
However, an abrupt and catastrophic event would soon annihilate life across southeastern Virginia in mere seconds.
A bolide, which is an extraterrestrial object such as an asteroid or comet, struck the lower Chesapeake Bay.
Rich Whittecar, a geologist and emeritus professor at Old Dominion University, described the vast implications, stating, “There was a kill zone that would have been several hundred miles out in every direction.”
The impact caused a volcanic-like lateral blast that traveled faster than the speed of sound, generating significantly more explosive power than the atomic bombs detonated by humans.
According to Whittecar, plants and animals would be “totally shredded” by the debris and simultaneously incinerated by the extreme heat.
In the 1990s, geologists began to piece together the story of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, recognized as the largest known bolide strike in the U.S. and one of the largest globally.
Recent research has further illuminated the extensive repercussions of this historical collision, revealing physical evidence of a devastating tsunami caused by the asteroid strike as far as 240 miles away in North Carolina.
This groundbreaking discovery originated almost a decade ago when Bob Ganis, a retired consulting geologist, was examining fossils in Moore County, North Carolina.
During his investigation, he received a call from a local property owner regarding a pipeline construction project near her property known as Paint Hill Farm.
Curious, Ganis agreed to examine the temporary trench, which led to one of the most bewildering days of his career.
As he inspected the exposed rock layers, which were about 10 feet deep, he was “totally baffled,” as the geological characteristics did not align with his knowledge of the area.
Determined to solve the geological mystery, Ganis embarked on a years-long quest beginning with dating the rock layers.
His research team found fossilized shark teeth in the vicinity and collaborated to date them back to the late Eocene era, which spanned from approximately 56 to 34 million years ago.
After this breakthrough, Ganis partnered with Ralph Willoughby from the South Carolina Geological Survey to explore the unusual sediment layers.
Ganis recalled, “When we get to the top, this explanation of all this rubble at the top, we’re still scratching our heads, ‘What is this stuff?’”
A revelation came to Ganis while reviewing photographs from the trench site when they recognized the characteristics indicative of a tsunami deposit.
Only one geological event could explain the presence of such a deposit: the meteoroid impact in Virginia 35 million years ago.
The asteroid, traveling at approximately 44,000 miles per hour, measured around 2 to 3 miles wide and created a colossal crater in what is now Virginia’s continental shelf, much of which remains underwater in the Chesapeake Bay.
The impact formed a circular outline encompassing modern-day Hampton Roads, including parts of the Eastern Shore, northern Norfolk, and the eastern outskirts of the Peninsula and Middle Peninsula.
As with any object entering a body of water, the asteroid’s collision sent up a tremendous splash, likely generating a tsunami thousands of feet high.
Ganis noted that this was a tsunami unlike any normally observed in the world, likely washing over the Blue Ridge Mountains and sweeping across the Southeast.
When geologists originally researched the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, they hypothesized about a widespread tsunami, but physical evidence had eluded discovery until now.
Ganis’ team initially focused on the sediment formations at Paint Hill as a potential tsunami deposit but required more evidence to validate their theory.
The bottom layer of sediment featured charcoal, natural glass, and rock fragments consistent with ejected material from the impact, indicative of a “tremendously hot blast,” according to Ganis.
Another layer contained ash resulting from the explosion.
Whittecar played a crucial role in analyzing the top sediment layer, identifying sandy conglomeration embedded with petrified wood and a substance known as plinthite.
His expertise confirmed the presence of plinthite, a reddish, iron-rich clay often found in tropical regions.
The evidence suggested that the Virginia tsunami had swept this material up from the seafloor to Paint Hill.
An important find within the sediment was iridium, a metal rare on Earth but abundant in asteroids, further underpinning the tsunami theory.
The research team published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal, Southeastern Geology, last month.
The 300-acre Paint Hill property was recently sold to the Nature Conservancy, which intends to preserve the tsunami deposits as a significant highlight in their plans for the Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve.
Whittecar highlighted the scientific significance of their work, emphasizing that it’s not just curiosity driving these discoveries, but also a need for knowledge and future hazard prevention.
He remarked that the findings add weight to the concept of potentially mitigating asteroid threats in the future.
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