There are roughly 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth, but geologists estimate that hundreds more lurk undiscovered. Now, there’s at least one more—and a large one, at that—in the confirmed bin , spotted by an amateur astronomer planning a camping trip to Quebec.
地球上大约有 200 个已确认的撞击结构，但地质学家估计还有数百个尚未被发现。现在，在已确认的垃圾箱中至少还有一个，而且是一个很大的，是由一位计划去魁北克露营的业余天文学家发现的。
In 2024, Joël Lapointe was prepping for a camping trip to the remote Côte-Nord region when he noticed a circular feature in online satellite maps near Lake Marsal. Suspecting that the depression might be an impact crater, he contacted experts in both Europe and North America.
2024 年，Joël Lapointe 正准备去偏远的北海岸地区露营，这时他注意到马萨尔湖附近的在线卫星地图上有一个圆形特征。他怀疑凹陷可能是一个撞击坑，因此联系了欧洲和北美的专家。
His questions led a team of French researchers to list the lake area as the center of a possible 11 th -known impact structure in Quebec at a meeting of the Meteoritical Society in 2024—which eventually led to the involvement of Gordon Osinski , a planetary geologist at Western University and director of the Impact Earth database. Osinski was initially skeptical. But with his curiosity piqued, he decided to join an expedition to the remote site organized by CEREGE , an international multidisciplinary research and teaching center based in France.
他的问题促使一组法国研究人员在 2024 年举行的陨石学会会议上将该湖区列为魁北克省可能第 11 个已知撞击结构的中心，最终促使西部大学行星地质学家兼撞击地球数据库主任戈登·奥辛斯基 (Gordon Osinski) 参与其中。奥辛斯基最初持怀疑态度。但出于好奇，他决定参加由法国国际多学科研究和教学中心 CEREGE 组织的一次远程考察。
Osinski and colleagues arrived in October 2025 by floatplane and quickly found themselves in unforgiving terrain. The plane couldn’t reach the shore, and the researchers had to wade across 50 meters (165 feet) of water to reach land while laden with gear. The terrain, meanwhile, was rugged, swampy, teeming with bugs, and covered by what Osinski described as “deep, twisty, gnarly vegetation.” Despite having conducted extensive fieldwork on six continents, he described the conditions as among the most challenging he had ever experienced.
奥辛斯基和同事于 2025 年 10 月乘坐水上飞机抵达，但很快发现自己身处险恶的地形。飞机无法到达海岸，研究人员必须带着装备涉水 50 米（165 英尺）才能到达陆地。与此同时，地形崎岖、沼泽、虫子丛生，并被奥辛斯基描述为“深邃、曲折、粗糙的植被”所覆盖。尽管他在六大洲进行了广泛的实地考察，但他将这些条件描述为他经历过的最具挑战性的条件之一。
Previous geologic mapping suggested that the breccia rocks in the area were the product of a funnel-shaped volcanic feature known as a diatreme —a pipeline of fragmented rock formed by explosive eruptions of magma. Yet by the second day, the researchers had identified distinctive features called shatter cones in many rock outcrops—a sign that the structure was actually an impact crater. “It’s the only unequivocal evidence of an impact event that you can see in the field with the naked eye,” Osinski said.
之前的地质测绘表明，该地区的角砾岩是漏斗状火山特征的产物，被称为“diatreme”——由岩浆爆发性喷发形成的碎石管道。然而到了第二天，研究人员在许多岩石露头中发现了称为破碎锥的独特特征，这表明该结构实际上是一个撞击坑。奥辛斯基说：“这是你可以在现场用肉眼看到的唯一明确的撞击事件证据。”
The object that struck was large enough to create a complex crater structure that spanned 25 kilometers (16 miles), complete with a central uplift and tall cliffs marked by columnar jointing . Were an object of a similar size to strike Quebec today, it would cause “regional devastation on a scale that would wipe out major cities and have global climate impacts,” Osinski said.
撞击的物体足够大，足以形成一个复杂的陨石坑结构，横跨 25 公里（16 英里），包括中央隆起和柱状节理的高悬崖。奥辛斯基说，如果今天有一个类似大小的物体袭击魁北克，将造成“大规模的地区性破坏，其规模将摧毁主要城市并产生全球气候影响”。
Rock samples indicated that the impact crater likely formed about 390 million years ago, about 100 million years before a surge in cratering on Earth that may be associated with collisions in the asteroid belt.
岩石样本表明，撞击坑可能形成于约 3.9 亿年前，比地球上可能与小行星带碰撞有关的陨石坑激增早约 1 亿年。
After consultations with the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit , the research team is calling the crater Uhackatik. While the team considers the crater essentially confirmed, a Meteoritical Society committee is expected to formally recognize the site as an impact crater when it next meets. This is the largest impact crater discovered since the 31-kilometer Hiawatha structure was found in 2018 .
在与 Ekuanitshit 因努人理事会协商后，研究小组将这个陨石坑命名为 Uhackatik。虽然研究小组认为该陨石坑基本上已得到确认，但预计流星学会委员会下次会议时将正式承认该地点为撞击坑。这是自2018年发现31公里长的海华沙结构以来发现的最大撞击坑。
Osinski is a member of NASA’s first Artemis Geology Team and helps astronauts with geology training, but he doesn’t expect to see astronauts at Uhackatik anytime soon because of how difficult it is to reach. There’s a younger, more accessible impact crater in Labrador—Kameshtashtan (also called Mistastin Lake )—where astronauts have done geology training in the past , he said.
奥辛斯基是美国宇航局第一个阿耳忒弥斯地质小组的成员，帮助宇航员进行地质训练，但他预计不会很快在乌哈卡蒂克见到宇航员，因为到达那里非常困难。他说，拉布拉多有一个更年轻、更容易接近的陨石坑——卡梅什塔什坦（也称为米斯塔斯汀湖）——宇航员过去曾在那里进行地质训练。
For Lapointe, tipping off the scientific community to the new crater is something he’ll long remember. He told CityNews he was “over the Moon” when the researchers confirmed it was really a crater. “I encourage everyone to not ignore intuition or an observation, even if it isn’t part of your field of expertise,” he told another outlet .
对于拉普安特来说，向科学界透露新陨石坑的消息是他永远不会忘记的事情。他告诉《城市新闻》，当研究人员证实这确实是一个陨石坑时，他“欣喜若狂”。 “我鼓励每个人都不要忽视直觉或观察，即使它不属于你的专业领域，”他告诉另一家媒体。
Citizen scientists hoping to leave their mark on the science world have plenty of opportunities through NASA. With the Daily Minor Planet project, help look for asteroids and comets that might pose a risk to Earth. With Impact Flash , scour dark parts of the Moon for flashes caused by meteoroid impacts. And with Exoasteroids , hunt for signs of asteroids beyond our Solar System.
希望在科学界留下自己印记的公民科学家通过 NASA 有很多机会。通过每日小行星项目，帮助寻找可能对地球构成风险的小行星和彗星。使用撞击闪光，在月球的黑暗部分搜寻流星体撞击引起的闪光。借助外行星，寻找太阳系之外小行星的迹象。
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey . Photos by Gordon Osinski (Western University). Story by Adam Voiland.
NASA 地球观测站图像由 Lauren Dauphin 使用美国地质调查局的陆地卫星数据拍摄。照片由戈登·奥辛斯基（Gordon Osinski）（西方大学）拍摄。亚当·沃伊兰的故事。