Haughton impact crater

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Synthetic aperture radar image of Haughton crater

The Haughton impact crater is located on Devon Island, Nunavut in far northern Canada. It was formed about 39 million years ago (late Eocene) by an impacting object approximately two kilometres in diameter leaving a crater some 23 kilometres (14 mi) in diameter.^[1] At 75° north latitude, it is one of the highest-latitude impact craters known. Because of this geographic location, it retains many of the geological features that lower-latitude craters lose to erosion. The temperature is below the freezing point of water for much of the year, and what little vegetation there is is slow-growing, so very little weathering has taken place.

Devon Island itself is composed of Paleozoic shale and siltstone overlaying gneissic bedrock. In the formation of Haughton, the overlaying formations were peeled back and the basement rock exposed; material from as deep as 1700 metres has been identified. The center of the crater is atypical in that the impact breccia (ejected rock which has fallen back into the impact zone and partially re-welded) is permeated with permafrost, thus creating a close analog to what may be expected to be found at crater sites formed on a cold, wet Mars.

Devon Island region

Because Haughton's geology and climatology are as close to Mars-like as can be had on Earth, Haughton and its environs have been dubbed by scientists working there as "Mars on Earth." The Mars Institute and SETI operate the Haughton-Mars Project at this site, designed to test many of the challenges of life and work on Mars.