New study tells us what's up with what's going down with the sinking Chesapeake Bay

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New study tells us what’s up with what’s going down with the sinking Chesapeake Bay

Michelle Basch | [e-mail]
February 10, 2026, 6:40 AM

It has long been known that the Chesapeake Bay region is sinking, and an extensive new study led by Virginia Tech now details how fast, with rates that vary widely. ... The Virginia Tech study highlights how sinking land can worsen the effects of relative sea level rise, which combines global ocean rise with local land subsidence.

“There’s more flooding. There’s higher impacts from storm surges. You may have sunny day flooding,” Sarah Stamps, associate professor of geophysics at Virginia Tech, told WTOP. Impacts vary by location, she said.

The Laurentide ice sheet that covered almost all of Canada and many northern parts of the U.S. tens of thousands of years ago is a primary driver of the sinking land in the region. The ice was so thick and heavy that it pushed the land beneath it down. And like a slow geological seesaw over thousands of years, land nearby that the ice didn’t reach was pushed up.

When the sheet finally melted, the land that had been pushed up, including the Chesapeake Bay, resumed a slow, long-term subsidence.

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Michelle Basch is a reporter turned morning anchor at WTOP News.
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@MBaschWTOP