Manicouagan Impact Crater
Manicouagan Reservoir lies within the remnant of an ancient eroded impact crater (astrobleme). The crater was formed following the impact of a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) diameter asteroid which excavated a crater originally about 100 km (62 mi) wide although erosion and deposition of sediments have since reduced the visible diameter to about 72 km (45 mi). It is the sixth-largest confirmed impact crater known on earth. Mount Babel is interpreted as the central peak of the crater, formed by post-impact uplift.
Research has shown that impact melt within the crater has an age of 214±1 million years. As this is 12±2 million years before the end of the Triassic, the impact that produced the crater cannot have been the cause of the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event.
Read more about this topic: Manicouagan Reservoir
Famous quotes containing the words impact and/or crater:
“Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.”
—Walter Bagehot (18261877)
“Give me a condors quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!”
—Herman Melville (18191891)