What’s the strangest thing you have stumbled upon accidentally?
For one camper, a quick browse on Google Maps led to the discovery of what appears to be a meteor crater.
Researchers are currently assessing the site in Canada to determine what the cause was of the mysterious ring-shaped formation in Quebec’s remote Côte-Nord region.
Joël Lapointe’s satellite discovery sees an usual pit that spans 15 km (9.3 miles).
After spotting the mysterious shape, he contacted Dr Pierre Rochette, a geophysicist from the Centre de recherche en géosciences de l’environnement (CEREGE) in France.
Dr Rochette examined the site more closely and concluded that the impact of a meteor may have created the ring of small mountains that circles Marsal Lake.
The satellite images suggest that the formation has an average altitude difference between the floor and the rim of about 200m to 300m, along with a faint circular inner ring 8km (5 miles) in diameter.
In their paper, which was presented at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society 2024, the researchers wrote: ‘Based on the already available preliminary evidence, Lake Marsal seems to be a serious candidate to become the 11th confirmed impact structure from Quebec.’
They added: ‘We thank Joel Lapointe, from Shawinigan, Quebec, for pointing to us this potential crater’.
If the ring is confirmed to be created by a meteorite impact, the crater could be a major find – the last one that was found of this size was discovered in 2013.
The crater’s age is estimated to be between 450 and 38 million years old, meaning it may shed more light on ancient planetary dynamics.
Dr Rochette and his team have already collected samples from the site containing zircons, which are minerals that transform under the immense pressure of an asteroid impact.
And, if confirmed, Marsal Lake could join the ranks of nearly 200 impact craters worldwide, 31 of which are in Canada .
Earth sciences professor at Western University Dr Gordon Osinski told CBC that circular structures are often spotted on Google Earth or Google Maps, but nine times out of ten they turn out to be geological quirks, not craters.
However, of the new discovery, he said: ‘It’s super exciting. It doesn’t happen too often.’
The team plans on officially visiting the site in 2025, if they can get the funds. If the researchers find the presence of shatter cones, which are grooved rock formations caused by the shockwaves of an impact, then they can confirm that the crater was caused by a meteorite.
Impact craters form when a fast moving object, like an asteroid or a meteorite, smashes into the surface of a larger solid object like a planet or the moon.
This creates a massive dent, and can lead to loss of life even if they don’t hit, because they can cause severe injuries by exploding in the air – such as the meteor that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, or the asteroid that hit the Earth in 2013 and injured over 1,600 people in Russia, mostly due to broken glass.
Currently, the biggest impact crater found on Earth is the Vredefort crater in South Africa, which is 160 km (99 miles) wide and was likely made around 2 billion years ago.
Scientists have estimated that the asteroid that hit there was 10 to 15 km (6 to 9 miles) in diameter, which is bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
The second biggest is the Chicxulub crater on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, which is 180 km (112 miles) wide, and created by a 12 km (7.5-mile) asteroid around 66 million years ago. This is the one that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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