Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and the Geological survey of Canada (GSC) found in the Western part of the Arctic zone of Canada, the huge crater that was left by the meteorite millions of years ago.

Located in the Northwest part of the island, Victoria, it is about 25 km wide and is called the Peninsula of the same name of Prince albert. It was discovered during a study area with a helicopter, but Professor Brian Pratt (Brian Pratt) of GSC and his colleague Keith Boingo (Keith Dewing it took two years to collect all the necessary data for the publication of research.

The exact time of the appearance of the crater it is impossible to determine, according to the available data it happened between 350 and 130 million years ago. The main question asked Pratt, the obvious: how could so long not to see such a large trail of a meteorite strike?

"This area was studied by geologists in the 60-70-ies. The information in these reports and made us wonder terrain: steep slopes, unusual for Western Arctic. But it is not surprising that in the past century, scientists have not made our conclusions - not yet recognize the key signs, never guess what you're looking at," says the author of the discovery.

These signs began metre cracks in rocks that are formed from a huge amount of energy produced in this case, the impact on the earth's crust. Pratt, and Duygu it took two years to map and model strike to prove that the meteorite and nothing has formed a crater.

Studying meteorite, or drums, craters helps to get information about the evolution of the earth's crust, geological processes of the past and extinct ecosystems. On Earth, there are around 160 such craters (30 of them are in Canada), but scientists believe that encountered with the planet meteorites was much more, but traces of the clashes were wiped off the face of the Earth migration ocean waters, processes of vyvetrivaniya and erosion, tectonic plate movement and many other processes for hundreds of millions of years.

Source: University of Saskatchewan