In addition to helping you reach your destination as quickly as possible, Google Maps is also useful for discovering places of interest around you, whether in a new city or in your neighborhood. The navigation app offers extensive details about local hotels, restaurants and stores, including opening hours, photos and user reviews, in addition to directions to these places. But Google Maps can be used for even bigger discoveries than finding a brand new ice cream parlor around the corner. Think about much larger points of interest that have been hiding in plain sight for hundreds of millions of years, like a massive crater with a diameter of 25 km accidentally discovered by a Google Maps user who was planning a trip with the app.
Joël Lapointe is a Canadian amateur astronomer who was researching a camping trip in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec in 2024 when he noticed a circular pattern that resembled the impact crater of a meteorite. Centered on Lake Marsal, about 62 miles north of Magpie, the impact site is now known as Uhaachatik Crater (written Uhackatik on Google Maps). Discovering a possible meteorite impact crater is not enough to confirm and name it. Lapointe was in contact with researchers who came to Canada to take soil samples and determine whether they contained evidence confirming a meteorite impact.
British professor Gordon Osinski and his team of geologists confirmed Lapointe’s suspicions. Initially, they found traces of zircon at the impact site, a material that can form during such events. This isn’t the only evidence that a meteorite hit Earth millions of years ago.
Geologists confirm Lapointe’s intuition
When Lapointe discovered the crater-like structure, he thought the suspected impact crater had a diameter of 9 miles, significantly smaller than the scientific discoveries that followed. According to planetary geologist Gordon Osinski, the crater is one of the largest impact structures identified in recent years. In addition to zircon, researchers discovered broken cones in the rocks around Lake Marsal, which form when shock waves caused by the impact pass through the ground. They also discovered molten rock, which requires high temperatures and pressures to form, conditions that are met during a violent impact.
Subsequent laboratory tests established the age of the meteorite crater. The space rock hit Earth about 390 million years ago, forming the massive crater that Lapointe accidentally discovered on Google Maps. The impact structure became known as the Uhaachatik Crater after scientists discussed their findings with the region’s Ekuanitshit Innu Council. Although the space object must have been large in size to leave such a large impact crater behind, it was not a dinosaur-killing event, as dinosaurs did not roam the planet at the time. The first species of dinosaurs appeared around 230 million years ago, more than 150 million years after the Uhaachatik impact.
Other discoveries made with Google mapping products
According to Osinski’s comments on LiveScience, the scientific community knows of about 200 impact craters on the planet. The researcher noted that about one or two new craters are discovered each year, but most of them are between 3 and 6 miles in size. That said, Google’s mapping software, including Google Maps and Google Earth, has been instrumental in other discoveries in recent years.
For example, the discovery of Kamil Crater began with a Google Earth search in 2008. According to the European Space Agency, Kamil Crater is “one of the best preserved meteorite impact sites ever discovered.” To put things into perspective, Kamil Crater is 148 feet wide and about 52 feet deep. This was caused by a 10 ton object measuring 4 feet in diameter. The agency estimates that the plume following the impact would have been visible about 600 miles away.
Scientists used Google Maps and Google Earth for discoveries unrelated to space debris. For example, Lee Berger used Google Earth to find the Malapa region, in the cradle of humanity in South Africa, after analyzing potential caves on the map. In 2008, excavation work at the site discovered a species of hominid dating back almost two million years, Australopithecus sediba. Furthermore, satellite images from Google Earth were used to identify Mount Mabu in Mozambique. Sometimes called Google Forest, the region is home to approximately 7,880 hectares (19,472 acres) of unexplored rainforest and is home to at least 10 species newly identified in 2014.
