Know anything about the 50-mile wide impact crater under/that created Chesapeake Bay?

Question

Driving I saw a U-Haul truck with a picture from Maryland (you know how they've various State features, like dinosaurs, landmarks, etc.) -- and it depicted a HUGE asteroid impact crater. Is this where the American lions, camels, dire wolfs, maserdons and sloths went? ...The more we know, the more we realize that we don't know.

Answer 1

The Chesapeake Bay impact structure was formed 35.7 million years ago during the late Eocene period. It is 52 miles in diameter. The impact structure is completely buried under 1000 to 1600 feet of sediment, because it is buried it was only discovered by seismic surveys carried out for oil & gas exploration.

It predates the extinction of the American lions, camels, dire wolfs, mastodons and sloths - all went extinct when ice age ended 13-10,000 years ago.

The centre of the crater is buried under the town of Cape Charles, Virginia. Apart form the main crater, there are 23 other satellite craters (around 1 1/4 to 3 3/4 miles in diameter).

The Chesapeake Bay impact structure is a classic peak ring impact structure, it contains a peak/hill 3,000 feet high its the middle, just like large lunar craters. The depth from the outer rim of the crater to its crater floor is ~5,000 feet. Surrounding the crater is a thick ejecta blanket 4,250 feet thick, containing huge blocks and breccia ejected out of the crater in the moments after the impact.

The impact is associated with a 2 degree Celsius drop in temperature and a minor extinction event. The Chesapeake Bay impact also produced the North American Tektite strewn field, tektites are impact "shrapnel" ejected from the crater, and they can be found all along the east coast.

The Chesapeake Bay impact is the same age as the 13 mile wide Toms Canyon impact structure off New Jersey, and it is only a little younger then the 62 mile wide Popigai impact structure in Siberia, Russia. The large number of impacts in such a short space of time, maybe due to a cometary shower. That a large number of comets were sent hurtling into the inner solar system from the Oort cloud by a close encounter with another star systems gravity field.

From: Ancient impact structures on modern continental shelves:The Chesapeake Bay, Montagnais, and Toms Canyon craters, Atlantic margin of North America by C. Wylie Poag, Jeffrey B. Plescia & Phillip C. Molzer

Answer 2

Unfortunately I dont have an answer for you, but I did give you a star.

You have made an interesting point(: