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06-03-2004, 05:01 AM
June 01, 2004
<font size=4>Drilling Finds Crater Beneath Va. Bay</font>
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAPE CHARLES, Va. (AP) - Geologists drilling half a mile below Virginia's Eastern Shore say they have uncovered more signs of a space rock's impact 35 million years ago.
For more than two weeks, scientists drilled around the clock alongside a parking lot across the harbor from Cape Charles. They stopped at 2,700 feet.
From the depths came jumbled, mixed bits of crystalline and melted rock that can be dated, as well as marine deposits, brine and other evidence of an ancient comet or asteroid that slammed into once-shallow waters near the Delmarva Peninsula.
Cape Charles is considered Ground Zero for the resulting 56-mile-wide depression below what's now the Chesapeake Bay. The drilling project marks the first time the geologists explored the inner portion of the inverted-sombrero-shaped crater.
"We expected to see some pretty strange rocks because of the extreme pressure and temperatures that occurred" approximately 35 million years ago, said geologist Greg Gohn, who led the $180,000 project for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Over the past decade, USGS and Virginia scientists have investigated indications that a 2-mile-wide brilliant ball traveling tens of thousands of miles per hour crashed off the Virginia coast, burrowing thousands of feet and depressing and fracturing the bedrock.
Billions of tons of ocean water vaporized. Millions of tons of debris spewed 30 miles high before collapsing back into the excavation. A train of giant waves inundated the land. The waves then dragged debris as they washed back into the crater, preserving it beneath a blanket of rock and sediment.
More on this Interesting Story (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2004/jun/01/060107312.html)
<font size=4>Drilling Finds Crater Beneath Va. Bay</font>
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAPE CHARLES, Va. (AP) - Geologists drilling half a mile below Virginia's Eastern Shore say they have uncovered more signs of a space rock's impact 35 million years ago.
For more than two weeks, scientists drilled around the clock alongside a parking lot across the harbor from Cape Charles. They stopped at 2,700 feet.
From the depths came jumbled, mixed bits of crystalline and melted rock that can be dated, as well as marine deposits, brine and other evidence of an ancient comet or asteroid that slammed into once-shallow waters near the Delmarva Peninsula.
Cape Charles is considered Ground Zero for the resulting 56-mile-wide depression below what's now the Chesapeake Bay. The drilling project marks the first time the geologists explored the inner portion of the inverted-sombrero-shaped crater.
"We expected to see some pretty strange rocks because of the extreme pressure and temperatures that occurred" approximately 35 million years ago, said geologist Greg Gohn, who led the $180,000 project for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Over the past decade, USGS and Virginia scientists have investigated indications that a 2-mile-wide brilliant ball traveling tens of thousands of miles per hour crashed off the Virginia coast, burrowing thousands of feet and depressing and fracturing the bedrock.
Billions of tons of ocean water vaporized. Millions of tons of debris spewed 30 miles high before collapsing back into the excavation. A train of giant waves inundated the land. The waves then dragged debris as they washed back into the crater, preserving it beneath a blanket of rock and sediment.
More on this Interesting Story (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2004/jun/01/060107312.html)