Bloody Creek Crater EarthCache
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The Bloody Creek impact crater is located in Dalhousie Nova Scotia. Watch the "Related Web Page" link above.
The Bloody Creek crater is approximately .5 km in diameter and
formed in granite in south-western Nova Scotia. There is a
near-continuous rim which supports the theory this is a meteor
impact site. The rocks around the crater show evidence of the
incredible shock wave that occurred through the force of the
impact. The age of the crater is currently undetermined but two
possibilities exist. The shallow depth could be an indication that
this is an older crater that has been eroded, ice resulted in
dissipation of the impact energy resulting in the shallow
crater’s shape. The Bloody Creek structure is the only
recognized on-shore impact crater in Atlantic Canada and one of
only three low angled craters known to exist in the world. THE
CANADIAN PRESS Acadia University researchers are studying a
meteorite crater south of Bridgetown, with the possibility of
proving other meteors came down here thousands, if not millions, of
years ago. The group led by Ian Spooner, an environmental
geo-scientist in the earth and environmental science department,
published a paper in the journal “Meteoritics and Planetary
Science” earlier this month. It outlines details of the
elliptical impact crater about one kilometre in circumference at
Bloody Creek reservoir, a small lake on South Mountain, about 20
kilometres from Bridgetown. The crater was discovered in the late
1980s by former Acadia professor George Stevens, who wanted to see
the research expanded, Spooner said in an interview Tuesday. Called
the Bloody Creek structure, the 10-metre deep crater is formed in
granite, making it all the more important because, unlike in other
rock, only an impact could have produced such elliptical features,
said Spooner. The only other known meteor crater in the region is
under the ocean about 100 kilometres off the south shore of Nova
Scotia. “So it’s the first onshore crater that we know
of in Atlantic Canada,” he said. Perhaps more importantly,
there is evidence of as many as three other possible craters in the
vicinity, making it a multiple-impact site, a rare event anywhere
in the world. A student of Spooner is studying what is called the
north group, a cluster of three smaller possible craters about 200
metres in diameter located only 500 metres north of the larger
crater. “We have not published information on that group yet,
but are expected to present the findings at two scientific
conferences coming up,” he said. “That’s very
important because on the Earth’s surface there are very few
multiple-impact events. Usually it’s just one crater.”
Research has shown that the large crater has a raised rim.
Scientists are now trying to understand many different facets of
the impact, like its age. The presence of the rim shows that it was
the result of incredible pressures known only to be caused by
impact events. “It could be as young as 12,000 years, or it
could be older and what we’re seeing is the eroded remnants
of an event that occurred some millions of years ago,”
Spooner said. “If it’s young, it could be incredibly
important because the only way it could be produced is if the
meteor hit ice during the last stage of the glaciation. “If
it did that, then it would have vaporized an incredible amount of
ice into moisture and it would have potentially changed climate in
the region, if not hemispherically.” And it would have had
incredibly deleterious effects on the people who inhabited the
area. “If this is a young-impact event, there is every
possibility that it had a very significant effect on people in the
region at that time,” he said. “If this thing hit now,
we wouldn’t be talking. It would have been a catastrophic
impact.” He said the impact would have been felt for hundreds
of kilometres, and the explosion and shock wave would have resulted
in almost total devastation. The Bloody Creek structure is one of
only three low-angled craters known to exist. It is only the 177th
impact crater discovered on Earth. Spooner expects scientists will
be studying the site for years as it requires further research by
physicists and mathematicians who recognize how impacts work, which
is research outside the collective fields of Acadia. To log this
earthcache take a picture of yourself and GPS with the lake in the
backround at the listed coordinates and post your photo on the
geocaching site. The center of the crater is at N 44 45.000 W 065
14.583 Answer the following questions and e-mail the results to us.
1. How deep is the crater? 2. What can you see in the lake that
indicates evidence of the craters rim? 3. What unique quality makes
this impact site a rare find?
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