A Quebec amateur astronomer was scouting a campsite using satellite imagery in 2024 when he spotted a 25-kilometre ring around Lake Marsal, and geologists who reached it by floatplane the following ye

A casual glance at satellite imagery revealed what geologists had missed for nearly 400 million years: evidence of an ancient cosmic collision hidden in plain sight beneath Quebec's forests.

Published September 21, 2026 · How we edit

In 2024, Quebec amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe was planning a camping trip in Quebec’s Côte-Nord region and scrolling through satellite imagery when a nearly circular pattern of ridges caught his attention, arranged around a body of water called Lake Marsal. The feature was roughly 25 kilometres across, large enough that it should have been an obvious landmark, yet it did not correspond to any catalogued geological structure.