As far as meteor impact craters are concerned, we would need to upgrade the classification for the Manicougan Crater, in Canada, to that of either an asteroid or comet impact site. In simple terms, the crater is too big to have been caused by a standard meteorite. This conspicuous geographic feature is well known to have been carved out by a much larger extra-terrestrial body.
No human being would ever wish to begin to imagine the cataclysmic effects of when an estimated 5km wide asteroid plummeted into this section of the now northern Canada. Much of the planet would have been shaken by tremendous earthquakes and it would be highly likely that mountainous tsunamis would also have played a part; crashing into islands and landmasses many thousands of kilometres away from the impact site.
As the Manicougan crater was believed to have been created around 214 million years ago, this places it into the Triassic period of the Mesozoic era. Our planet would have looked completely different at this time and northern Canada was not placed in the same location on the planet’s surface as it is today. In actual fact, the North American continent was thought to have been joined together with much of the rest of the World in a super continent known as Pangea.
This truly devastating event has left a huge scar on the planet’s surface which still measures up to 100km in diameter today. This feature has been made use of through the fact that it is now home to the Manicougan Reservoir.
The Manicougan Crater in Canada has been linked, by scientists, to other crater impact sites across the World. These are located in the Ukraine, France and other parts of North America and it is widely believed now that the original asteroid or comet probably broke up into a number of destructively large segments which struck simultaneously and globally.
In terms of destruction to our planet, this type of event may have been responsible for what is known as a “mass extinction event”. The end-Carnian extinction event, which is thought to have occurred around this time, has been associated with the Manicougan Crater and the others around the world that are considered to have transpired at exactly the same time.
However, there is a lot of conjecture over this. Unlike the Chicxulub crater, which is located in the Gulf of Mexico, there is not as much clear-cut evidence for the loss of any specific species of animal that can be definitely tied in with this asteroid impact. The Chicxulub crater is almost certainly the reason why dinosaurs, ammonites and a vast number of other species of flora and fauna became extinct, around 65 million years ago.
If we are considering the shear scale and size of the Manicougan crater, there would never be any denying the fact that the impact would have been on an apocalyptic scale. And furthermore, if other craters occurred simultaneously around the world, we probably are looking at the fact that a global crisis would have resulted from one of the most powerful forces known to ever afflict this planet.
Christopher L. Shelby, M.D.