Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and the Geological survey of Canada found a huge meteorite crater, formed millions of years ago in the Western Canadian Arctic.

The crater, located in the North-West of the island of Victoria, has about 25 km wide. This is already the thirtieth found in Canada.

"Impact craters like that tell us how updated the earth's crust and what is the speed of erosion, " explains Brian Pratt from the University of Saskatchewan. Thus, it helps to understand what role could be played by meteorites in mass extinctions".

The researchers found the crater from a helicopter during the preparation of geological maps. Data processing took two years. Nakhodka proposed to be named after Prince albert, as the Peninsula on which it is located.

Although there is no way to accurately determine the time of the strike, preliminary evidence suggests that the crater younger than 350 million years, but over 130 million

Why it was able to open just now, despite the fact that the geologists have not once been in those places in the 1960's and 1970's? "We were intrigued as old times reports on steep slopes that are unusual for the Western part of the Canadian Arctic, " says Mr. Pratt. - But if you didn't recognize the clue, you will never understand what lies before your eyes. You can see, for example, a bunch of broken stones and wonder where they came from, and we saw not just the stones, and the cones cracking. We are talking about cracks radiating up to one meter in length, which are formed when allocating huge amounts of energy when a meteor hits the earth's crust".

Just on the planet found about 160 craters. Of course, meteorites was much more, but because of weathering, erosion and tectonic processes are not gone.

Recall that about a month ago it was reported about the discovery of the oldest terrestrial crater in Greenland.