Thirty-five million years ago an asteroid impacted the area and created a fifty-five mile across on what is now the Southern Maryland coast. Fast-forward to about eighteen thousand years ago, the crater, as it was, filled with the fresh water of the melted glaciers from the ice age and began to form what is now known as the Susquehanna River valley. As the climate warmed, the glaciers continued to melt, and the tree population majority changed from conifers to oaks, maples, and other hardwoods. Paleo-Indian peoples began to settle into this region and over the next thousand years the climate continued to change into what it is today: a temperate climate. The shape of the Chesapeake Bay as we know it today did not come about until about two…show more content… The largest estuary in the United States, water flows from about one hundred fifty rivers, creeks, and streams from inland and the Atlantic Ocean. It stretches two hundred miles long from Havre de Grace, Maryland to Virginia Beach, Virginia and the width ranges from four miles near Aberdeen, Maryland to thirty miles near Cape Charles, Virginia. This body of water might be large in area, but the average depth is about twenty-one feet. Although, there are a few troughs that are believed to be ancient Susquehanna River, the largest river that feeds into the Bay, that can be as much as one hundred seventy four feet deep. The Bay’s watershed extends over six states; Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, all with a grand total of eighteen million people actively polluting the Bay on a daily basis. The airshed is almost triple the area of the watershed. It includes all the states in the watershed plus North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, Vermont, Georgia, and parts of Canada. Since the Bay is so shallow compared to other bodies of water, the effects of pollution can be seen much faster than other areas of the
