
Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater - mnemonicsloth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_impact_crater
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aeolis_mons
This may have contributed to the immiseration and decline of the Jamestown
colony, some thirty-five million years later:

"Chesapeake Bay is the remains of a giant meteor crater. The impact shattered
rock for miles, letting seawater infiltrate. Few Indian groups lived in the
saltwater wedge, presumably for just that reason. Jamestown was bordered and
undergirded by bad water. That bad water, the geographer Carville V. Earle
argued, led to 'typhoid, dysentery, and perhaps salt poisoning.' By January
1608, eight months after landfall, only thirty-eight [of the original 144]
English were left alive."

From Charles Mann's "1493", which is a fantastic read; it's full of satisfying
connections between environmental and historical forces like the above.

~~~
gilbetron
Haven't read 1493 yet, but looking forward to it. Read 1491 about a decade ago
and it blew my mind. You just pushed 1493 back up towards the top of my "to
read" list :)

I think it was 1491 where I first encountered the idea that red earthworms are
invasive and the real reason "great forests" are in decline.

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niftich
The crater and the resulting aquifer disruption is a contributing factor to
why several nearby cities import their water from far away. Another is that
the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News acquired water rights to
nearby creeks long ago, back when nearby jurisdictions were rural counties, so
by the time other areas experienced growth, all of their surface water rights
were already owned by the oldest cities [1].

Caught in a wave of post-war growth, white flight, threatened by annexation,
and discontent with having to buy local water from their neighbors, counties
in this part of Virginia started becoming cities. In Virginia, cities are
independent from counties -- the federal government therefore considers
Virginia cities to be county-equivalent -- and cities are protected from
annexation by adjacent cities.

Counties turned into cities, then merged with an adjacent friendly city to
avoid annexation by a rival city; Princess Anne County merged into the City of
Virginia Beach; Norfolk County merged with the City of South Norfolk and
renamed itself to Chesapeake; Nansemond County changed into a city, then a
year and half later merged into the City of Suffolk; the county surrounding
the City of Hampton merged back into it; and the City of Newport News
eventually merged by mutual agreement with the City of Warwick, even though 6
years prior Warwick changed from a county to a city to avoid that exact fate.

After experiencing major growth, Virginia Beach wanted to have a better
negotiating position with Norfolk over water supply. It build a long
interbasin transfer [1][2] to withdraw water from Lake Gaston on the Roanoke
River, adjacent to the North Carolina border. Chesapeake joined as a minority
partner. The resulting water is delivered into to Norfolk's system, who
filters and treats it, and distributes it to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, the most
urbanized areas of Chesapeake, and most military bases in the area.

[1]
[http://www.virginiaplaces.org/watersheds/lakegaston.html](http://www.virginiaplaces.org/watersheds/lakegaston.html)
[2] [https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/public-
utilitie...](https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/public-
utilities/about-pu/lake-gaston/Pages/default.aspx)

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Thorentis
It amazes me that these events seem "frequent" when you look at them overall,
but then extremely rare when you realise how far apart some of them are
(millions and millions of years). It really makes you realise just how small a
window of time human existence has been given. We may see one or two major
geological events in all of human histroy if we're lucky (or unlucky,
depending on what they are!).

~~~
sjcsjc
Not wishing to be a smart-arse, but I can't think of any major geological
event that we would consider ourselves lucky to observe.

~~~
n0rbwah
I bet many geologists would consider themselves lucky to observe some major
geological events. Just as long as it's safe enough for their person.

~~~
shadowprofile77
The problem with the really big geological events is that they have no safe
observation distance anywhere on Earth.

I mean, I'd love to see a 3 mile asteroid strike the Earth, just for the sake
of observing so many cascading disaster effects...... so long as I could do it
from space, while viewing an alternate version of the Earth, in which I don't
have to live afterwards.

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mc32
Looking at this map[1] of known impact craters, it looks like of the
landmasses, eastern Canada, (western) Australia and northern Eurasia have
experienced the most impacts and Africa, China and South America have
experienced the fewest (Antarctica largely unknown).

Now one thing which the map doesn’t represent is the position (coöperdinates)
of the affected landmass at time of impact.

[1][https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Earth_Im...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Earth_Impact_Database_world_map.svg)

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pfdietz
The results are affected by the density of geologists.

~~~
wallace_f
Africa, China and South America have wonderful geologists and people just like
America and Europe. What are you trying to say?

~~~
nkrisc
I think they're saying there are fewer, nothing about their ability.

~~~
pfdietz
Right.

BTW, you should note the increasing volume of paleontological discoveries
coming out of China these days.

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arkanciscan
Debris from the impact made it all the way to Texas!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bediasite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bediasite)

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IAmGraydon
I live just along the outer rim area. What’s amazing is that I have yet to run
into anyone in this area who knows about the crater structure beneath their
feet!

