Roughly 35 million years ago, a space rock traveling at approximately 40,000 MPH, about the size of Manhattan, slammed into what is now the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Virginia. The three-mile-wide asteroid created an impact crater beneath Chesapeake Bay.

But it didn’t just affect Virginia. The impact was so significant that it triggered a tsunami that decimated what is now known as North Carolina.

All this comes to us thanks to a new study published in Southeastern Geology, which traced the long reach of that disaster nearly 240 miles south to Moore County, North Carolina. There, geologists discovered four unusual rock layers that provided physical evidence of the tsunami that followed the impact.

It was so powerful that it essentially landed seawater, sentiment, and debris d

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