Roughly 35 million years ago, a space rock traveling at approximately 40,000 MPH, about the size of Manhattan, slammed into what is now the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Virginia. The three-mile-wide asteroid created an impact crater beneath Chesapeake Bay.
But it didn’t just affect Virginia. The impact was so significant that it triggered a tsunami that decimated what is now known as North Carolina.
All this comes to us thanks to a new study published in Southeastern Geology, which traced the long reach of that disaster nearly 240 miles south to Moore County, North Carolina. There, geologists discovered four unusual rock layers that provided physical evidence of the tsunami that followed the impact.
It was so powerful that it essentially landed seawater, sentiment, and debris deep, deep inland. One powerful enough to bulldoze seawater, sediment, and debris deep inland, to about the middle of the Tar Heel state.
An Ancient Asteroid Triggered a Tsunami in North Carolina
The tsunami created distinct geological layers, each one telling its own story of the cataclysm. These four layers are composed of carbon-glass-rich clay, iridium, silt, and quartz, with traces of carbon.
We were bits of seafloor found in places they don’t belong, very deep inland, and there was a cap of coarse sand likely dumped by the massive backflow of tsunami water. The asteroid shattered the Atlantic shelf and shuffled distinctive bits of geology around, settling them in places they would never usually be found.
Until now, the idea that a tsunami followed the impact was mainly speculation. Scientists figured a hit like that had to send walls of water inland. They’d just never found a clear sign of it. This new site in North Carolina, with its out-of-place sediments and meteorite chemical markers, is all the proof they’ve been looking for.
The effects of this gigantic asteroid were not only felt in Virginia and North Carolina. Molten rock rained from Massachusetts down to Barbados in the Caribbean, vaporizing animals and vegetation all along the way.
The post An Ancient Asteroid Hit Virginia So Hard It Caused a Tsunami in North Carolina appeared first on VICE.
