The Johnsonville Impact Crater or the Snows Island Crater is a circular geophysical feature that has been interpreted by some scientists as an impact crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

, situated at the junction of Lynches River

Lynches River

Lynches River, named for Thomas Lynch, Jr., signer of the Declaration of Independence, rises in North Carolina near Waxhaw, North Carolina, at about 700 feet elevation, flowing only a short distance to the South Carolina border, and thence to join the Pee Dee River nearJohnsonville...

 and the Pee Dee River

Pee Dee River

The Pee Dee River, also known as the Great Pee Dee River, is a river in North Carolina and South Carolina. It originates in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, where its upper course above the mouth of the Uwharrie River is known as the Yadkin River. It is extensively dammed for flood...

 in South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

. Snows Island, at that point, is believed to be the upthrust of the center after the impact. This eight mile wide crater is not well defined at the surface and was discovered by magnetic anomalies and supported by the study of well

Water well

A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...

 drilling

Drilling

Drilling is a cutting process that uses a drill bit to cut or enlarge a hole in solid materials. The drill bit is a multipoint, end cutting tool...

 cores

Core sample

A core sample is a cylindrical section of a naturally occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, for example sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube called a core drill. The hole made for the core sample is called the "core hole". A...

. Supposed impact breccia

Breccia

Breccia is a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, that can be either similar to or different from the composition of the fragments....

 was found in these cores. This crater is close to circular, not oval like the younger Carolina Bay

Carolina Bay

Carolina bays are elliptical depressions concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard within coastal Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and northcentral Florida...

s.