By the evening edition.
A Canadian man was searching for a place to camp on Google Maps when he discovered a meteorite crater in northern Quebec. Experts are working to determine whether or not this is indeed the case.
It’s a discovery that doesn’t happen every day! While browsing Google Maps, a Canadian observed a mysterious hole on the north coast of Quebec. It could be a gigantic crater from an ancient meteor.
Canadian Joël Lapointe was looking for places to camp in Quebec when he came across a “suspicious well” according to the Daily Mail. Using Google Maps, he was able to determine that the crater was about fifteen kilometers in diameter.
He also noticed a ring of mountains about eight kilometres in diameter surrounding Lake Marsal about 100 kilometres north of the village of Magpie. An unusual feature for the area.
Read also: What remains of the mega-meteorite that pulverized Poitou 200 million years ago?
“It’s very evocative of the impact”
Faced with these suspicions, he spoke about his findings to expert researchers, including French geophysicist Pierre Rochette, a member of the Environmental Geosciences Research Center in Aix-en-Provence. They revealed that the pit could be the site of an ancient meteorite crash.
“Looking at the topography, it’s very suggestive of the impact.”Rochette told the CBC. After receiving samples of material from the pit, the geophysicist identified the presence of zircon, a mineral that preserves microscopic damage caused by a meteor impact.
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“Irrefutable evidence”
“One of the indicators of a crater would be the existence of burst cones. They look like grooves or lines on the surface of a rockexplains Gordon Osinski, professor of earth sciences at Western University, CBC. This is irrefutable evidence of a meteorite impact.”.
Experts are waiting to do more analysis before making a verdict. But if the pit is indeed the site of a meteor crash, the discovery would be “major” according to Rochette, because the last discovery of this type dates back to 2013.
“9 times out of 10, they are not craters”
“Some craters, like this one, can be millions, even hundreds of millions of years old.”said Tara Hayden, a postdoctoral associate at Western University, in the same article in the CBC.
“Nowadays, it is quite easy with Google Earth to find structures of circular or semi-circular origin”explained Gordon Osinski. But “Nine times out of 10, they are not craters.”
A potential excursion in 2025
However, Osinski believes that the newly discovered pit is indeed a “serious competitor” for the site of a meteorite crash. Indeed, he claims that 31 of the 200 confirmed impact craters in the world are in Canada, including nearly a third in Quebec.
Scientists are preparing an excursion to the site that could take place in 2025.
