Wright Horton Jr. J., Gibson R.L., Reimold W.U., Wittmann A., Gohn G.S., Edwards L.E.
U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192, United States; Impact Cratering Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, P.O. Wits, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Museum für Naturkunde-Leibniz Institute, Humboldt University Berlin, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058-1113, United States
Wright Horton Jr., J., U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192, United States; Gibson, R.L., Impact Cratering Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, P.O. Wits, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Reimold, W.U., Impact Cratering Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, P.O. Wits, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa, Museum für Naturkunde-Leibniz Institute, Humboldt University Berlin, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; Wittmann, A., Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058-1113, United States; Gohn, G.S., U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192, United States; Edwards, L.E., U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192, United States
The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP)-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Eyreville drill cores from the Chesapeake Bay impact structure provide one of the most complete geologic sections ever obtained from an impact structure. This paper presents a series of geologic columns and descriptive lithologic information for the lower impactite and crystalline-rock sections in the cores. The lowermost cored section (1766-1551 m depth) is a complex assemblage of mica schists that commonly contain graphite and fibrolitic sillimanite, intrusive granite pegmatites that grade into coarse granite, and local zones of mylonitic deformation. This basement-derived section is variably overprinted by brittle cataclastic fabrics and locally cut by dikes of polymict impact breccia, including several suevite dikes. An overlying succession of suevites and lithic impact breccias (1551-1397 m) includes a lower section dominated by polymict lithic impact breccia with blocks (up to 17 m) and boulders of cataclastic gneiss and an upper section (above 1474 m) of suevites and clast-rich impact melt rocks. The uppermost suevite is overlain by 26 m (1397-1371 m) of gravelly quartz sand that contains an amphibolite block and boulders of cataclasite and suevite. Above the sand, a 275-m-thick allochthonous granite slab (1371-1096 m) includes gneissic biotite granite, fine- and medium-to-coarse-grained biotite granites, and red altered granite near the base. The granite slab is overlain by more gravelly sand, and both are attributed to debris-avalanche and/or rockslide deposition that slightly preceded or accompanied seawater-resurge into the collapsing transient crater. © 2009 The Geological Society of America.