A man decided to get in touch with a scientist after discovering the eerie truth about a 'suspicious pit' on Google Maps.
Canadian Joël Lapointe was using Google Maps to help plan his camping trip in Quebec's Côte-Nord region when he stumbled across a weird-looking pit.
It was about 15 kilometres in diameter and something seemed off from the start.
Lapointe then noticed that there was a ring of mountains, approximately eight kilometres, surrounding the nearby Marsal Lake, which was 100 kilometres north of a village.
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As suspicions grew, Lapointe wanted answers, so he got in touch with French geophysicist Pierre Rochette to find out more.
That's when the expert suggested that the site could be a potential meteorite impact crater.
According to NASA, an impact crater 'is formed when an object like an asteroid or meteorite crashes into the surface of a larger solid object like a planet or a moon.'
"Looking at the topography, it's very suggestive of impact," Rochette, with the Centre de recherche en géosciences de l'environnement in Aix-en-Provence, France, told CBC.
Rochette is now part of the team of scientists who are investigating the site, having already received samples from the area.
They have so far discovered that the sample is, in part, made of zircon, which is a resistant mineral that transforms under the effect of an impact.
Tara Hayden, postdoctoral associate at Western University's department of Earth sciences, added: "It could tell us about when it was delivered to Earth.
"That's the wonderful thing about impact craters. We get to have this link between Earth and the outside universe."
This comes after 31 impact craters are currently located in Canada, Gordon Osinski, an Earth sciences professor at Western University, pointed out.
He noted that a 'lot of geologists looking around and occasionally making discoveries like this'.
"It's quite easy with Google Earth these days to go on and find structures that are circular or semi-circular in origin," Osinski said.
"You know, nine times out of 10 they're not [craters]."
But the team have seen enough to suggest that this site deserves more looking into.
All that is needed to continue their research is funding.
"It's super exciting," said Osinski. "It doesn't happen too often."
Hoping to lead a team out there in 2025, he said many tests need to take place to confirm the site as a crater.
He says that if they discover shatter cones on the rock's surface, then they are in business.
"Those are essentially unequivocal evidence of meteorite impact," he concluded.
Topics: Google Maps, Science, Space, Weird, World News
Anish Vij