Originally published at: Man browsing Google Maps may have made big scientific discovery - Boing Boing
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“the impact could have taken place between 450 and 38 million years ago.”
I think if it was only 450 years ago we would have heard more about it by now. /s
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Between “450” million and “38” million years ago is oddly nonspecific.
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Geologists hate using the more technical term “a really long time ago.”
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To geologists, 450 million years ago is still recent. As one of my university professors put it ‘There’s the Precambrian and then there’s just ‘drift’.’
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Kinda shocked they haven’t combed over topographical maps and pin pointed all the likely surviving impact craters.
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Search Crater Lake Oregon, then zoom outand look at the even larger circle feature to th NE which is at least 100 times the size
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Something an AI might be useful for.
Even when it screws up we could all smile and say a man browsing a map could do better.
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Visiting Iceland, a geologist friend used to point at rocks and say:
“This one wasn’t even here yesterday”.
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the 11th confirmed impact structure from Quebec,
Those meteors sure like Quebec!
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I discovered too late, than in Minnesota there is a rock called Greenstone that is ~3.8 billion years old (IIRC). It is some of the oldest rock exposed in North America. I found out too late that it existed, or I would have tried to find some.
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I’d have wanted a chunk too!
That’s incredibly old - it’s close to the age of the Amitsoq Gneiss in Greenland which was for many years thought to be the oldest rock on Earth.
There is the rather mangled Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in Quebec which has been tentatively dated even older - perhaps 4.2 billion years, though it might only be 3.8 billion!
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Quebec has a large portion of the Canadian shield, one of the largest regions where the Precambrian rocks haven’t been buried under younger deposits. It makes it terrible for fossils but apparently a great place to look for old impacts.
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I got some rocks from an estate sale, and some of them were labeled as Gneiss. I can’t remember if it is more descriptive than that, but I figured it was a pretty old rock.
Aren’t there some super old ones in Australia?
Being in Kansas so much is just chert, limestone, and sandstone. Of course there is more if you know where to look, including kimberlite with garnets. And Missouri, especially in the Ozarks, has some cool stuff.
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Yep! The oldest rock fragments come from the Jack Hills Range in Australia. They are tiny pieces of super-hard zircon eroded from older rocks which would have crystallised just 100 million years after the Earth - Moon system formed.
Sadly, these zircons are about the size of a human hair, it’d be cool to be able to hold one and admire its history.
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Lake Marsal? There is no such lake. Get your spelling right before you post something.
Welcome to BB
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Meanwhile, Terrence Johnson from Texas was looking at the maps preparing for a camping trip. He found a McDonalds, a ChickFil´A, an Arby´s, some firecracker stores and of course somewhere to buy a good gun bcos 2nd Amendment. Yeaaaa Merrrricaaaaa.
About as official as it can get:
https://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique?id=EHECJ
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