Pingualuit crater
Impact crater in Quebec, Canada
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Key Takeaways
- 14 mi) in diameter, and is estimated to be 1.
- The crater and the surrounding area are now part of Pingualuit National Park.
- Geography The crater is exposed to the surface, rising 160 m (520 ft) above the surrounding tundra, and is 400 m (1,300 ft) deep.
- The lake also holds some of the purest fresh water in the world, with a salinity level of less than 3 ppm (by comparison, the salinity level of the Great Lakes is 500 ppm).
- The lake has no inlets or apparent outlets, so the water accumulates solely from rain and snow and is lost only through evaporation.
The Pingualuit Crater (French: Cratère des Pingualuit; from Inuit "pimple"), formerly called the "Chubb Crater" and later the "New Quebec Crater" (French: Cratère du Nouveau-Québec), is a relatively young impact crater located on the Ungava Peninsula in the administrative region of Nord-du-Québec, in Quebec, Canada. It is 3.44 km (2.14 mi) in diameter, and is estimated to be 1.4 ± 0.1 million years old (Pleistocene). The crater and the surrounding area are now part of Pingualuit National Park. The only species of fish in the crater lake is the Arctic char.
Geography
The crater is exposed to the surface, rising 160 m (520 ft) above the surrounding tundra, and is 400 m (1,300 ft) deep. The 267-metre-deep (876 ft) Pingualuk Lake fills the hollow, and is one of the deepest lakes in North America. The lake also holds some of the purest fresh water in the world, with a salinity level of less than 3 ppm (by comparison, the salinity level of the Great Lakes is 500 ppm). It is one of the most transparent lakes in the world, with a Secchi disk visible more than 35 m (115 ft) deep. The lake has no inlets or apparent outlets, so the water accumulates solely from rain and snow and is lost only through evaporation.
Formation
The crater was formed by a meteorite impact 1.4 Ma, as estimated by 40Ar/39Ar dating of impact melt rocks, making the lake one of the oldest lakes in the world. An analysis of these rocks also revealed planar deformation features as well as the composition of the meteorite itself. Enrichments of iron, nickel, cobalt, and chromium found in impact melt samples suggest that the meteorite was chondritic in nature.
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