Haughton impact crater
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The Haughton impact crater is located on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada. It was formed about at the end of the Oligocene, 23 million years ago, by an impacting object approximately two kilometres in diameter which left a crater some 20 kilometres in diameter. At 75°N latitude, it is one of the highest-latitude impact craters known. Because of its geographic location, it retains many of the geological features that lower-latitude craters lose to erosion. Because the temperature is below the freezing point of water for much of the year, and what little vegetation there is is slow-growing, 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.
Because Haughton's geology and climatology are as close to Marslike as can be had on Earth, Haughton and its environs have been dubbed by scientists working there as "Mars on Earth." Several agencies, including NASA, the Mars Society, and the Planetary Society, have ongoing projects to test many of the challenges of life and work on Mars.
External links
- Haughton Crater - Arctic-Mars.org (http://www.arctic-mars.org/about/crater.html)
- Haughton Crater Concept Map (http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/CMEX/Haughton%20Crater.html)
- Peter Essick Photo Essay (http://www.arctic-mars.org/ESSICK/)