Chesapeake Invader (Princeton Legacy Library) - Hardcover

Poag, C. Wylie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691009198 ISBN 13: 9780691009193

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Thirty-five million years ago, a meteorite three miles wide and moving sixty times faster than a bullet slammed into the sea bed near what is now Chesapeake Bay. The impact, more powerful than the combined explosion of every nuclear bomb on Earth, blasted out a crater fifty miles wide and one mile deep. Shock waves radiated through the Earth for thousands of miles, shaking the foundations of the Appalachians, as gigantic waves and winds of white-hot debris transformed the eastern seaboard into a lifeless wasteland. Chesapeake Invader is the story of this cataclysm, told by the man who discovered it happened. Wylie Poag, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, explains when and why the catastrophe occurred, what destruction it caused, how scientists unearthed evidence of the impact, and how the meteorite's effects are felt even today. Poag begins by reviewing how scientists in the decades after World War II uncovered a series of seemingly inexplicable geological features along the Virginia coast. As he worked to interpret one of these puzzling findings in the 1980s in his own field of paleontology, Poag began to suspect that the underlying explanation was the impact of a giant meteorite. He guides us along the path that he and dozens of colleagues subsequently followed as--in true scientific tradition--they combined seemingly outrageous hypotheses, painstaking research, and equal parts good and bad luck as they worked toward the discovery of what turned out to be the largest impact crater in the U.S. We join Poag in the lab, on deep-sea drilling ships, on the road for clues in Virginia, and in heated debates about his findings. He introduces us in clear, accessible language to the science behind meteorite impacts, to life and death on Earth thirty-five million years ago, and to the ways in which the meteorite shaped the Chesapeake Bay area by, for example, determining the Bay's very location and creating the notoriously briny groundwater underneath Virginia. This is a compelling work of geological detective work and a paean to the joys and satisfactions of a life in science.

Originally published in 1999.

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About this title

About the Author

C. Wylie Poag is a senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His research emphasizes the integration of subsurface geophysical, geological, and paleontological data to reconstruct the stratigraphic framework and depositional history of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast margins of the United States. His thirty-year geological career includes experience as a petroleum explorationist, a university professor, and a project coordinator for the National Science Foundation's Deep Sea Drilling Project.

Reviews

In days of yore, 35 million days yore, a tremendous astral slap to earth's thin crust devastated the eastern seaboard of North America. Research geologist Poag reports the event like a 1950s news flash when he can, and like a conscientious scientist when he must. Out of the ether, in the late Eocene, hurtled a fabulous meteorite, 23 miles in diameter, traveling at 60,000 miles per hour, sizzling through the atmosphere, and slamming into the Chesapeake Bay. It kicked out supersonic shock waves, a hypercane (a super-hurricane with winds up to 500 mph) laden with white-hot rock debris, and tsunamis that could have measured in the thousands of feet. ``The blast wave alone would have instantly incinerated all higher life forms within six hundred miles.'' It left a crater 50 miles wide, a mile deep, now buried under younger rock and the thin waters of the Chesapeake. All this Poag relates with clipped vibrancy, and it makes for riveting reading, as other such events could happen at any time. You can run, but you can't hide. Nor can Poag escape the more mundane aspects of his workfor instance, explaining how he figured all this out. He tells that story by detailing the way he went about establishing a complete picture from fragmentary evidence. In this case, he combines examination of seismic samples provided by Texaco and core samples drilled by the government with an overview of evolutionary theory and rock principals (there are enough impact breccias and crystalline basements to keep readers on their geological toes). Poag also goes to great lengths to give practical justification for such research, pointing out how local subsidence is influenced by the crater structure and how its briny reservoir may contaminate groundwater supplies. A light-handed tale of scientific exploration, fascinating as living theater, where the daily grind has a chance to reveal more cosmic thrummings. (16 maps, 60 halftones, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Poag recounts the years of painstaking research that led to the identification of a 50-mile-wide meteorite crater formed 35 million years ago and now lying beneath newer rock and the waters of Chesapeake Bay. The chapters on the biological side of the research are a little weak, but the focus is on earth science and meteorology. Poag does a good job of making his text accessible to a lay audience and of explaining why it is important to study such phenomena as this crater. This book focuses on a specific site, but earlier volumes, for example, Bevan French's Traces of Catastrophe (Luna and Planetary Inst., 1998), Paul Hodge's Meteorite Craters and Impact Structures of the Earth (Cambridge Univ., 1994), and Kathleen Mark's Meteorite Craters (1987) have already covered the subject of meteorite craters in general. For academic libraries and larger public libraries.AJean E. Crampon, Science & Engineering Lib., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691009198
• ISBN 13: 9780691009193
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 168