I've been thinking about it some more and I think the grinding noise was from gears. At first I thought that the branch might have got caught on something spinning, like the flywheel/flex-plate. But since it got caught on the shift linkages, it probably shifted the transmission into a different gear, or to park, or half-way between gears? The car was in gear though when I pulled over.
Never had anything like that happen before, even when off-roading (not in the 370z). Probably a lot better chance of hitting a deer, but I've never hit a deer before.
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