My exploration and documentation of craters (presently only on this planet).
MANICOUAGAN IMPACT STRUCTURE – Aerial Exploration
MANICOUAGAN IMPACT STRUCTURE – Aerial Exploration
The water filled circular annular moat that is prominent in space images and illustrated here from GOZooM, is only one third of the size of the original crater. This moat fills a ring where impact-brecciated rock was eroded away by glaciation.
The first time I visited the Manicouagan impact crater in GOZooM, I approached it from the west. Here in this image I am directly over the area of the “outer disturbed zone”. The image from left to right spans over 70 km! At the cruising speed of my aircraft it would take over 15 minutes to cover that distance.The Manicouagan crater – south. In the two times since that I have visited Manicouagan the weather unfortunately compromised the quality of my pictures. You can see the low cloud layer over the central uplift region in the center of the structure with a rain squall in the southern area. The southern area of the annular moat illustrates the overwhelming size of the moat that was once filled with impact-brecciated rock.
The Manicouagan impact crater – impact melt cliff in Memory Bay. Memory Bay is prominent in the many space images of the structure as the bay that juts into the structure’s inner plateau from the east. Most of the impact melt of the impact structure is along Memory Bay.
The Manicouagan impact crater – over Memory Bay looking south west at the central peak.The Manicouagan impact crater – central peak looking south. At this point GOZooM is flying over ground zero of the impact looking south. The central peak of the uplift feature of the crater is in the foreground. The 400 m central peak is actually 5 km offset from the center of the crater. A depression, visible in the near background, is at the physical center of the crater. The south shore of the annular moat is visible in the far background.The Manicouagan impact crater – central peak looking southeast with Memory Bay in the foreground right and “marooned island” background (see below in ground exploration).The Manicouagan impact crater – central peak looking east with Memory Bay in the background.The Manicouagan impact crater – central peak looking east with Memory Bay in the background.
All the previous aerial images were taken from GOZooM from below 5,000 feet above ground.
Looking south to Memory Bay from a commercial airliner.Dr. Brian Laux took this image from above 30,000 feet on his way back from Europe. Thank you Brian.Manicouagan Crater, Quebec, as seen from a flight from Reykjavik to Newark. You can see about 3/4 of the crater moat – a ring lake where glaciers scoured impact melt – surrounding the central basement up lift. About 100 km in diameter but thought to lie within a 200-km multi-ring basin. From Dr. J. EichelbergerThe Manicouagan impact crater as seen from the ISS.This image of Manicouagan and the ISS was taken by Chris Hadfield from the space shuttle at approximately 1,300,000 feet above ground.The Manicouagan impact crater from the ISS, nice aurora EH?The iconic Manicouagan meteor crater in Quebec is pictured in this handout photo taken March 14, 2013, courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency. The crater is one of the oldest known impact craters on Earth, still visible from space.An aurora, airglow, one of the oldest impact craters on the Earth (Manicouagan), snow and ice, stars, city lights (Wabush) are documented from the International Space Station (courtesy Astronomy Picture of the Day)
