The Impact Cratering Record of the Canadian North

加拿大北部的撞击坑记录

• 批准号: 361904-2013
• 负责人: Osinski, Gordon
• 金额: $ 1.6万
• 依托单位: University of Western Ontario
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Northern Research Supplement
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=628501
• 关键词: Impact; Cratering; Record; Canadian; North

Impact cratering is a fundamental and ubiquitous geological process in the Solar System. It is considered the most important surface process on the Moon, Mercury, asteroids, and over large parts of the more geologically active planets of Mars and Venus. We now know that meteorite impact events have also played an important role throughout Earth's history, shaping the geological landscape, affecting the evolution of life, and producing mineral and hydrocarbon deposits of major economic significance. The results of this research program will fill in some significant gaps in current knowledge and will further our understanding of meteorite impact events and their beneficial scientific and economic effects. This is particularly important for Canada, which draws such a huge amount of wealth from the mining within the Sudbury impact structure - the richest mining district in North America. The long-term objectives of this research program is to test the hypotheses that meteorite impact craters can produce beneficial effects, such as providing new habitats for microbial communities, the generation of economic mineral and hydrocarbon deposits, and detailed paleoenvironmental records in intra-crater lake deposits. This work focuses on comparative study of impact craters ~20-40 km in diameter within different types of target rocks and in different states of preservation. This will enable the differentiation of local effects and features of specific craters from more general features of impact craters. The following 5 sites will be investigated over the course of the next 5 years: Haughton impact structure, Nunavut, 75° 22' N, 89° 41' N; Mistastin impact structure, Labrador, 55° 53' N, 63° 18' W; Prince Albert impact structure, NWT, 72° 30' N, 114° 0'W; Clearwater East and Clearwater West impact structures, Quebec, 56° 05' N, 74° 07' W and 56° 13' N, 74° 30' W, respectively.

撞击坑是太阳系中一种基本且普遍存在的地质过程，它被认为是月球、水星、小行星以及火星和金星上大部分地质活跃的行星上最重要的表面过程。撞击事件在地球历史上也发挥了重要作用，塑造了地质景观，影响了生命的进化，并产生了具有重大经济意义的矿产和碳氢化合物矿藏。该研究计划的结果将填补当前知识的一些重大空白。并将进一步加深我们对陨石撞击事件及其有益的科学和经济影响的了解，这对于加拿大来说尤其重要，因为加拿大从北美最富有的矿区萨德伯里撞击构造中获取了如此巨大的财富。该研究计划的长期目标是测试陨石撞击坑能够产生有益影响的假设，例如为微生物群落提供新的栖息地、经济矿物和碳氢化合物沉积物的产生以及陨石坑内湖泊沉积物的详细古环境记录。这工作重点是对不同类型的目标岩石和不同保存状态下直径约 20-40 公里的撞击坑进行比较研究，这将使特定撞击坑的局部影响和特征与后续撞击坑的更一般特征区分开来。未来 5 年内将调查 5 个地点： 霍顿撞击构造，努勒维特，北纬 75° 22'；米斯塔斯汀撞击构造，拉布拉多，北纬 55°；北纬 53'，西经 63° 18'；西北地区阿尔伯特亲王冲击构造，北纬 72° 30'，西经 114° 0'；克利尔沃特东和西经冲击构造，魁北克，北纬 56° 05'，西经 74° 07'分别为北纬 56° 13'、西经 74° 30'。