The 100 Kilometer Wide Impact Crater in Canada; Manicouagan Crater

[@cmaven4762]

The first time I noticed this feature on Canadian maps, I wondered what could have caused such a perfectly circular feature of such size. Thanks for the video describing its formation.

[@denelson83]

_Nastapoka arc has entered the chat_

[@onmyway3139]

@@denelson83 this was a cool "today i learned" moment thx

[@FrankBullitt390]

Skeleton lake in Ontario is also an impact crater. Its a crazy lake, you can walk out a long ways and the water is only up to your knees, then its drops off big time

[@denelson83]

@@FrankBullitt390 Only about 8 km long, though, so not very impressive. The Nastapoka arc forms part of a circle with a 230 km radius.

[@FrankBullitt390]

@@denelson83 Yes but its something you can go experience, its smack dab in the middle of cottage country.

[@Gr8Sc0tsman24]

It is absolutely wild to me that such devastating events are not well known. It is unfortunate that most other meteor strikes are overshadowed by the K-PG extinction. As someone who has been a fan of palaeontology since he was young, it is embarassing to me that I hadn't heard about this event before now. Thank you for educating me! ❤

[@rickhouston2144]

As a Canadian, I really enjoy learning about the vast land we live on

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

We're living in an incredible country. I really wish we'd commit to trains again & renew rail with modern infrastructure. We should have so much more tourism & mobility than we do, cross country.

[@warpey5632]

The Manicouagan crater did not always have a ring shaped lake in it like it is today. From what I could find, the crater only had two shallow crescent shaped lakes in it but a dam was built to fill up the crater and use it as a hydroelectric reservoir. The two lakes merged into a single ring shaped lake when the dam was built and the water level rose.

[@entangled31415]

True! Dam made it "visible"

[@CTP1111]

I can't imagine an impact crater that would take almost an hour to drive across at highway speeds 😳

[@samuraiboi2735]

Plus its almost thrice the size of my country

[@jean-francoisturcotte6275]

The Daniel-Johnson dam (Hydro-Québec's Manic 5 power generating station) at the southern end of the reservoir is a sight to be seen. It raised the lake's level by several meters. The island at the center of the reservoir is the René-Levasseur island; a good chunk of it was marked for lumber harvesting two decades back, which is a pity since it was a pristine territory almost devoid of any human activity; one of the very few left in North America.

[@StuffandThings_]

Yeah I absolutely cannot believe that of _all_ the places they could have chosen for lumber harvesting, they just HAD to chose one of the coolest geographic features in Quebec. Canada is particularly bad about their timber harvesting policy, they've trashed some of the most pristine, ancient, and productive old growth temperate rainforest on the planet in Vancouver island, most of it in literally the last 70 years. They're STILL cutting 1000+ year old cedars there. Its ridiculous. Some forest is better off still standing. I mean imagine the tourism industry they could set up in that impact crater, but no instead its just seen as raw materials.

[@erictrudel1164]

I was at the Daniel Johnson Dam just a month ago. Really impressive indeed.

[@gustru2078]

It's a protected area. No lumber exploitation would ever be permitted there, let alone social acceptability.

[@StuffandThings_]

@@gustru2078 Only a small part is protected, though there's now a huge push to protect the whole thing

[@Wirmish]

@@gustru2078 No, Our politicians are corrupt bas___rds.

[@VolcanoGroupie]

Thank you for posting this after your recent posting about a dual circle. I fly over this one from Chicago to Iceland and it’s amazing.

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

Checking out your list of impact craters, I investigated Vredefort Crater in southern Africa. Looking at the Olifants River, it is very interesting to see the 'escape path' from the crater and on out to the ocean; a dam along the way is 4 miles wide. Maybe you could do a video on this and also on Lake Tanginiyka and why it is so prominent.

[@Tristenjits]

PLEASE DO THE SUDBURY BASIN IMPACT CRATER 2ND LARGEST IN THE WORLD!! CLICK 👍🏽 if u agree

[@AaronGeo]

Coolest island ever, fight me

[@PavelDatsyuk-ui4qv]

Cockburn island is still uninhabited and caribou island

[@brandonboulton2776]

Ok. When and where?

[@StuffandThings_]

Its definitely got some good competition from other impact crater islands though, like the Slate islands, or the Clearwater lakes' archipelago, or even the islands of Lake Mistassini (which is potentially a colossal impact crater remnant, and Ile Rouleau _is_ an impact crater island _within_ this potential impact crater). Also some volcanic islands definitely give it a good run for its money, especially those in more pleasant climates. Still though its probably the coolest when viewed from satellite.

[@Larken42]

Space rock ignites Quebec! Solid rock turned into soup, in massive impact. Ground zero anticipated to remain warmed for thousands of years.

[@efdangotu]

​@@brandonboulton2776 Center of the island.

[@therafnquads1980]

44 trillion tons of TNT equivalent is just ridiculous lol.

[@LEDewey_MD]

Thanks for returning to, and updating the information, on impact craters.

[@lpollitt]

Yay been waiting for this! I've actually driven through the crater en route to a remote canoe trip up in Labrador a few years back. Quebec, being Quebec, not only decided to put a huge dam just south of there (Manic Cinq) but also sell merch.. of the dam... in the middle of remote forest. Albeit, the dam is quite an impressive feat of engineering, and the crater is quite a beautiful spot of boreal forest!

[@chrisfernandez8916]

''Quebec, being Quebec''. What do you mean?

[@Wirmish]

@@chrisfernandez8916 I know what he mean. I'm from Quebec.

[@xwiick]

Thanks for all the hard work on these videos!

[@TheSpaceEnthusiast-vl6wx]

Thanks as always, Geology Hub!

[@StuffandThings_]

Its still impressive to me how minor the mass extinction was compared to the size of the impact. Surely the underlying rock units and the climate conditions of the time would have helped to dampen this, compared to the rather unfortunate circumstances of the Chicxulub impact.

[@Dragrath1]

Yeah the effects were much smaller since the main death component of the Chicxulub impact was its unfortunate target rock. We should also note how the timing of this earlier impact during the reign of Pangaea would also have contributed to making the effects even worse but that seems to have been a small effect compared to the vast amount of sulfur dioxide and particulate matter injected into the atmosphere by the Chicxulub impact. To date no other extinction has had the same impact on phytoplankton cyanobacteria and other algae which normally thrive in and around continental waters in a mass eutrophication fueled by the liberated organic material of so many dead and dying things. That apparently never happened with Chicxulub or if it did the effect was comparably negligible compared to other extinction events. The only other possible impact extinction which might have been possible is the still largely just a hypothesis linking apparent genetic truncation of genetic diversity of extant modern cyanobacteria to roughly the same timeframe as the Sudbury impact crater which also seems to have targeted a shallow Marine setting. And it is very well possible that the Vredefort impact crater may have had a similar impact possibly contributing to the extinction of nascent multicellular aerobic life which had been developing within the Francevillain basin given that based on the preserved buried sedimentary sequences around the crater, partly preserved due to the ejected material depressing the surrounding crust show the target was a delta bay environment. The continental target here seems to have mitigated the impacts directly but I wonder do we know of any major volcanism possibly associated with this impact as is speculated based on the potential end Permian impactor within the East Antarctic craton then deeply buried within the ancient paleocontinent Gondwana?(i.e. Siberian traps). There was a oceanic flood basalt around 230 Ma but that is too late timewise.

[@sincerewyd2285]

InSANE! 5,000 YEARS OF SMOLDERING HEAT 🥵

[@robertwilliamson922]

@sincerewyd2285 Yes….that massive crater took 5,000 to cool down. Probably want to live 1,000 miles or so away.

[@shannonpincombe8485]

Another amazing video. Your content is the best thing I watch. Thank you so much.

[@S-T-E-V-E]

Amazing, it looks like a landmark from a Lord Of The Rings! 17km/sec is mind blowing!

[@vixtex]

Thank you! That was a new Geology lesson💫

[@JohnDeck1]

Another great report. Thanks

[@earkittycat]

My favourite impact crater 👍

[@kaylalarocque4214]

I love watching these, and I'd love to see a video in the Sudbury Crater sometime!

[@FastNCurious88]

Have been fascinated by this since I first discovered it existed a few years ago 🎉

[@ozzymandius666]

To this day, that impact crater is though to be the source of some of the earthquakes in Quebec. Also, the ring lake is considered very dangerous for boaters, as wind on one side can make large waves that get channeled to the other side, so you can get swamped right out of the blue.

[@HunsterMonter]

Another source of earthquakes in Québec is the Charlevoix impact structure, which is another impact crater near Baie-Saint-Paul and La Malbaie

[@doxielain2231]

I've been wanting to visit this crater ever since I saw it on a map and went "huh, that looks interesting"

[@MSjackiesaunders]

Nice info. Could you, at some time, do an entire retrospect of meteor extinction events?

[@floffycatto6475]

I remember the first time I spotted this crater while exploring Google Earth, which was still pretty new at the time. Thinking "What is this giant round face doing in Canada?" and reading about the impact crater Wikipedia article.

[@yetanotherentity]

That was fascinating! Thank you.

[@Ackira]

Having such catastrophic event be described in such a calm voice is so weird and interesting

[@stephenfranklin6980]

I like how you're really digging into canadian geography since the whole chilcotin incident! :)

[@SylviusTheMad]

The local geology of the Canadian Shield is unusual on Earth, so it stands to reason that impacts there might behave differently from impacts elsewhere.

[@GAMakin]

Rumor has it that the asteroid hit around 12:00 hours. When most of the inhabitants were headed off to lunch.

[@ngwoo]

They were all really lucky that it didn't destroy the hydroelectric dam there.

[@anothersquid]

Thank you for that! If you love donating blood to mosquitoes, Manicouagan is *the* place to visit in Canada. I joined. woot!

[@whisperingpines2469]

Great videos

[@Donkas]

Can you please have a look at these coordinates and tell me if it is a impact crater? Coordinates: 17°41'33.4"S 127°54'42.6"E

[@Donkas]

It's not wolf creek, its north of it by a couple of hundred km, and much bigger.

[@blip5105]

I've flown over that on the way to argyle. Always wondered.

[@blip5105]

I know it's not named just an odd shape

[@brianwilliams4883]

Brilliant animations, I learn so much.

[@Lethal_Venom]

When you showed Maine on Google maps I could see me house

[@rylanpeepee]

There's this water feature that is around 30 km across in northern minnesota, Its suspiciously circler and the township of Wakemup and Vermilion Dam can be found along the feature. I found it while looking on Google earth and I wonder if It cloud be anything.

[@Dovietail]

What a gorgeous feature.

[@ChrisJones-pi5mh]

There’s also another 2 impact craters approx 600km northwest of this location near Hudson Bay. The craters are right beside each other, but are apparently separated by about 70,000,000 years.

[@Iseenoobpeoples]

I want to go see it one day, only 9h drive.

[@jcim6438]

Thanks.

[@jehhhGames]

Most scientists now agreed the chixiloub crater didnt cause the extinction of the dinosaurs, but was the nail in the coffin, they were already mid extinction when it hit. So its not a surprise this one didnt cause one either.

[@oregonbeachdad]

Thank you!

[@grokeffer6226]

Fascinating stuff!!

[@slewter9041]

The coolest thing about these mass extinction events are that it’s an absolute certainty it will happen again and again,,if it happens in our lifetime I’d wanna be as close to it as possible,,best show on earth👍

[@Astrofrank]

I expected good content. And I got good content.

[@ngwoo]

The idea of the ground at the impact site staying hot for 5000 years is insane to me

[@dennisenright9347]

The ring shaped lake is actually artificial, created by the building of the Daniel Johnson dam. The island in the middle is actually the largest man made island on Earth. I would be curious to know if the area was known to be an impact before the dam was built, or if it were predicted to form a reservoir with that shape. It is the continents largest reservoir

[@cmaven4762]

I did wonder if the lake existed all along, or if the ring was mainly the path of rivers and streams prior to the dam's creation. I think we'd have heard more about such a lake... certainly would have been one of the wonders of the new world for European explorers...

[@StuffandThings_]

Before the dam there were 2 lakes on either side, and rivers in the valleys connecting them. The reservoir didn't really actually change all that much about the geography. One of the few reservoirs that I'd say actually improved the local geography lol.

[@AlbertaGeek]

You're making the definition of "man made" do a lot of work.

[@chrisbelos2834]

i swear to god even if the mass extinction hit quebec there would still be people alive, canadians are tough as nails !

[@alexanderstone9463]

I always figured that the less immediate impact of this event was due to where it happened. Rather than striking a limestone basin in a shallow sea like Chicxulub, it struck a continental shield, smack in the middle of Pangea, in what was probably a desert or drylands.

[@terryaudla7895]

The one area I’ve always suspected of being and impact site is the south eastern shore of Hudson Bay with the Belcher Islands being in the center of it. Interestingly the Belcher Islands are rebounding at a rate unlike any other location.

[@Strykenine]

Many impact craters are sources of mineral deposits. Are there economically significant minerals located at this site as well?

[@brianw612]

There are also two very large ancient impact craters just east of Hudson Bay. While they are only separated by one kilometer, it is thought they resulted from separate events tens of millions of years apart.

[@LoPhatKao]

that was last weeks video😉

[@cacogenicist]

All else equal, the severity of extinctions probably has a lot to do with what sort of rock is being impacted.

[@terrypitt-brooke8367]

I reckon the difference is the Chixelub impact was in carbonate rocks and the Manicouagan wasn't. The subsequent release of CO2 in the former case would have compounded the impact winter with a subsquent tremendous warming

[@tonyduncan9852]

Woa. Fact dense. 😎

[@baraxor]

Using the tables for the effects of nuclear explosions, I once calculated that this impact, if it happened at the same spot today, would shatter every window on the North American continent.

[@stevekluth9060]

Love ya (I’m even a Patreon supporter) but multiple hemispheres?

[@bassplayersayer]

Now that's a bad day.

[@idontlikeitproductions3509]

Haha! I remember seeing this crater in a Homestar video because it looked like Strong Sad's head.

[@Dr_Do-Little]

Si tu savais comme on s'ennuie À la Manic Tu m'écrirais bien plus souvent À la Manicouagan

[@WWZenaDo]

Interesting.

[@elmoremundell9450]

Hello. What is the mostly green circular structure just ENE of this one ?? It's faint but I think it's there, and it's nearly as large as this one. THANKS!!

[@denelson83]

Done the Nastapoka arc yet, Geology Hub?

[@markmaki4460]

I remember from childhood a bit of Paul Bunyan folklore about a circular river; i have often wondered if this crater was its inspiration.

[@skysurfer5cva]

Immediately to the NNW, the reservoir partially outlines out a circular feature that is approximately the same size as Rene-Levasseur Island. Next to it, to the east, is a smaller almost circular feature that is also partially outlined by the reservoir. Could these be the worn-down central peaks of secondary impacts?

[@terryenglish7132]

There was a strike in the area of what is now the Chesapeake Bay around the same size that didn't cause an extinction event either. Did the bolide hit or air burst ? The much smaller air burst(s) of 10,000 - 20,000 years did cause an extinction, so maybe thats a factor. Or perhaps water is a factor . Both it and the Dinosaur killer threw insane amounts water into the atmosphere . The Chesapeake Bay wasn't there yet, so it was a land strike. Was this strike or air burst over land or water way back then ?

[@mrquackadoodlemoo]

I wonder if Manicouagan has the world record for largest island/lake ratio.

[@tornader]

I also like the islands that are on a lake that's on the manicouagan island

[@IanPendleton-gh6ox]

Nice video overall, but there was one thing in it which really irked me. The part of the video that stretched from 1:18 to 1:31 didn't show a Triassic animal at all, just an animated Monitor Lizard. I'm not sure if you picked it at random from the internet or if it was AI-generated (I really hope it's not the last one), but as a major enthusiast of anything prehistoric, using random videos seemingly picked without thought that showcase modern animals as prehistoric wildlife grinds my gears more then almost anything else. I would really appreciate it if you were more careful about that sort of thing in the future.

[@xiphosura413]

Just a small typo, "Arcaman" crater should be "Acraman"

[@shaun8256]

Island in this lake I've read is restricted or forbidden to go on, speculations of government experiments, now I've just got to ask why hasn't anything been said about Hudson bay, it looks a lot like an impact crater to me, but I'm just going off visual evidence that corresponds with all the other impact craters that have been talked about!

[@paelb656]

The island is not forbidden nor restricted, my family goes fishing there. I have no clue what you could be talking about. No government experiments.

[@shaun8256]

@@paelb656 uh like I said it's just what I hear about!

[@Craicfox161]

Fragments of a larger asteroid that landed in Greenland

[@luciferrises4656]

Based off what evidence…? I’m pretty sure this predates any known Greenland crater by hundreds of millions of years.

[@entangled31415]

2:55 How was determined the (appox.) density=3 of this beast?

[@the80hdgaming]

Have you ever covered the Brent Crater?

[@felixar90]

As a kid I thought this was a river going around in a circle.

[@John-ir2zf]

I feel like earth needs another one of those 🤷‍♂️

[@GAMakin]

Kind-of a wake-up call...

[@Uncanny_Mountain]

Careful what you wish for Seems they're frighteningly more regular than we thought

[@John-ir2zf]

@@Uncanny_Mountain so there's hope to get this rock clean of us ? Maybe the next dominant species won't be so corrupt and hubris....

[@jimpollock8303]

whoops, "multiple hemispheres"? there are only 2, by definition. You can define them any number of ways (as long as your divisor goes through the centre of the sphere) but there are only ever two at a time. Still, good info, thanks.

[@RandOm-hr5jn]

“consisting of, including, or involving more than one” or “many, manifold” (“Multiple, Adj.,”, its a multiple of 2

[@Arutima]

People always wonder why there's no civilization and major cities in the Canadian Shield. just look at all these lakes.

[@roadkillavenger1325]

I love craters

[@Syritis]

can someone tell me a conodont is? or any of the others are, My paleontology sticker book is clearly lacking.

[@Yaivenov]

44 GIGAtons. 😮

[@AndyDrake-FOOKYT]

Wetumpka meteor crater near montgomery, Alabama.

[@crakkbone]

DO THE WHITECOURT IMPACT PLEASE 😅😅

[@markmower6507]

I think that it is Extraterrestrials checking out their new Technology between 50 million to 300 million years ago. But hey that's just my Opinion...

[@JoniFili]

What about an update on the Chilcotin River blockage??!!!

[@FundyisleLegacy]

That’s been cleared for a week or more now and rather uneventfully

[@fabulousfabrications1985]

Not an impact site ! If it was there wouldn’t be lower land mass around the outermost part where the water is but it would be lower land mass in the centre if this was an impact site

[@jeffclark5268]

It’s Kay-beck not kwuh-beck. French rarely pronounce que as kwuh. Just like queso is not kwesso in Spanish.

[@angeurbain6129]

In QuÉBEC... forget about Canada here.

[@mikehartman5326]

Dozens of cubic kilometers of ground? 3:32 time stamp. Kind of low balling it.

[@digitaldreamer5481]

If this same event happen today, what period would it be called years from now?

[@williamreffett5862]

Dumavishon sounds right

[@anything.with.motors]

44.4m mt is ot 44.4b tons its 44.4t tons of explosive power Its 44.4b kt

[@aronlane4664]

17km /second is a lot more than 3000 miles / hour

[@T3H455F4C3]

He said 38,000 miles / hour

[@anatomyconspiracy9416]

Definitely not a crater. It is the remnants of the tower of Babel. North Eastern Canada is ancient Babylon.

[@patbrennan6572]

44 trillion tons of iron traveling at 38 thousand miles an hour, I can't think of a better way to go, bring it on. LOL

[@TheGremalin]

Why does canada have so many craters? there is so much water there. shouldn't't glaciers and water cycles and other forces eroded it all? Thanks, and have a great day?

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

The rock in this area is very ancient and very hard. The continental ice sheet scraped most of the overburden off, exposing 2+ billion years of bombardment. Most of planet is covered with oceanic plate less than 200 million years old, or relatively recent rock, so any ancient craters have either been subducted or covered by thick layers of sediment and new rock.

[@TheDanEdwards]

The glaciers eroded the much younger material on top of what we see today.

[@TheProrokpl]

I knew it.was big but... Dauym

[@EladLerner]

I'm sad that I'm an impact crater