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So I have a question that may be too complicated to answer which is understand. But is there any impact that the Chesapeake impact crater had on fossils in Virginia?

That’s a great question that I hadn’t thought about before! My guess is that the impact crater didn’t affect the fossils in the Appalachians all that much. Those are much older than the Chesapeake impact, but they were probably too far away and sheltered by the mountains. The impact probably affected the fossils on the Coastal Plain though. Many of the fossils we find today on the coast are younger than the crater, so I wonder if the impact mashed up those fossils that were already there. If so, that means we’ll generally find fossils younger than 35 million years (when the crater was formed). Something to keep in mind!