There are approximately 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth, but geologists estimate that hundreds more lurk undiscovered. Now, there’s at least one more, and a big one at that, in the confirmed container, discovered by an amateur astronomer planning a camping trip to Quebec.
In 2024, Joël Lapointe was preparing for a camping trip to the remote Côte-Nord region when he noticed a circular feature on online satellite maps near Lake Marsal. Suspecting that the depression could be an impact crater, he contacted experts in both Europe and North America.
Their questions led a team of French researchers to include the lake area as the center of a possible 11th-known impact structure in Quebec at a Meteoritic Society meeting in 2024, which eventually led to the participation of Gordon Osinski, a planetary geologist at Western University and director of the Impact Earth database. Osinski was initially skeptical. But with his curiosity piqued, he decided to organize an expedition to the remote site in October 2025 to investigate.
Osinski and his colleagues arrived by seaplane and quickly found themselves in unforgiving terrain. The plane was unable to reach shore and researchers had to wade through 50 meters (165 feet) of water to reach land loaded with equipment. Meanwhile, the terrain was rugged, swampy, crawling with insects, and covered in what Osinski described as “deep, sinuous, twisted vegetation.” Despite having conducted extensive field work on six continents, he described the conditions as some of the most challenging he had ever experienced.
Previous geological mapping suggested that the breccia rocks in the area were the product of a funnel-shaped volcanic feature known as a diatreme, a pipe of fragmented rock formed by explosive eruptions of magma. However, by the second day, researchers had identified distinctive features called fragmentation cones on many rock outcrops, a sign that the structure was actually an impact crater. “It’s the only unequivocal evidence of an impact that can be seen in the field with the naked eye,” Osinski said.
The object it struck was large enough to create a complex crater structure that spanned 25 kilometers (16 miles), with a central uplift and high cliffs marked by column junctions. If an object of similar size were to hit Quebec today, it would cause “regional devastation on a scale that would wipe out major cities and have global climate impacts,” Osinski said.
Rock samples indicated that the impact crater probably formed about 390 million years ago, about 100 million years before an increase in crater formation on Earth that may be associated with collisions in the asteroid belt.
After consulting with the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit, the research team calls the crater Uhackatik. While the team considers the crater essentially confirmed, a Meteoritic Society committee is expected to formally recognize the site as an impact crater at its next meeting. This is the largest impact crater discovered since the 31-kilometer Hiawatha structure was found in 2018.
Osinski is a member of NASA’s first Artemis Geology Team and helps astronauts with geology training, but he doesn’t expect to see astronauts at Uhackatik anytime soon because of how difficult it is to get to. There is a younger, more accessible impact crater in Labrador, Kameshtashtan (also called Lake Mistastin), where astronauts have done geology training in the past, he said.
For Lapointe, alerting the scientific community about the new crater is something he will remember for a long time. he said CityNews It was “over the Moon” when researchers confirmed that it was actually a crater. “I encourage everyone not to ignore intuition or an observation, even if it is not part of your field of expertise,” he told another outlet.
Citizen scientists hoping to make their mark in the world of science have many opportunities through NASA. With the Daily Minor Planet project, help search for asteroids and comets that may pose a risk to Earth. With Impact Flash, explore the dark parts of the Moon for flashes caused by meteorite impacts. And with Exoasteroids, look for signs of asteroids beyond our Solar System.
NASA Earth Observatory images taken by Lauren Dauphin using Landsat data from the US Geological Survey. Photos by Gordon Osinski (Western University). Story by Adam Voiland.
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