Clearwater Lakes
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The Clearwater Lakes (officially known by their French name, Lac à l'Eau Claire [1]) are a pair of circular lakes and a double impact crater (astrobleme) in Quebec, Canada near the Hudson Bay.
The eastern crater is 26 km and western 36 km in diameter. The lake forms a single body of water with a sprinkling of islands forming a "dotted line" between the eastern and western parts.
The impacts that created the craters on the Canadian Shield occurred simultaneously 290 ± 20 million years ago (Permian). The impactor may have been a binary asteroid. This suggestion was first made to support the then-controversial theory of asteroids possessing moons by Thomas William Hamilton in a letter to Sky & Telescope magazine.
The Clearwater Lake is named after the clear water it holds.
There are actually 25 lakes of that name in the province (26 if you count the "Petit lac à l'Eau Claire" —the "Small Clearwater Lake"). This one is the largest and northernmost.
[edit] External links
- Earth Impact Database
- Satellite image of the region (from Google Maps)
- Aerial Exploration of the Clearwater West Structure
- Aerial Exploration of the Clearwater East Structure
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