For more than two weeks, scientists drilled around the clock alongside a parking lot across the harbor from Cape Charles, Va. They stopped at 2,700 feet. From the depths came jumbled, mixed bits of crystalline and melted rock that can be dated, as well as marine deposits, brine and other evidence of an ancient comet or asteroid that slammed into once-shallow waters near the Delmarva Peninsula.
Cape Charles is considered ground zero for the resulting 56-mile-wide depression below what's now the Chesapeake Bay. The drilling project marks the first time the geologists explored the inner portion of the inverted-sombrero-shaped crater.