Amateur astronomer's Google Maps discovery confirmed as 390-million-year-old meteor crater

In late 2023, amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe was using Google Maps to plan a summer road trip when he spotted a strange circular pit located 100 kilometres north of Magpie, Quebec. That discovery has now been confirmed by researchers as the remnant of a meteorite impact 390 million years ago.

Lapointe, whose love of space began watching stars at his grandmother's house as a child, initially doubted himself. "I told myself, 'You haven't discovered anything, Joël, it's not possible, they must already know about this,'" he said. But when he didn't find the crater in any existing databases, he reached out to experts. It took several attempts before a French research centre agreed to investigate his theory.

When Gordon Osinski, professor of earth sciences at Western University in London, Ontario, heard about the potential crater, he was skeptical—his website Impact Earth receives many unverified "discoveries." The circular topography and early rock samples, however, intrigued him enough to co-lead an expedition to the site in 2025.

The 25-kilometre-diameter crater required the team to land by float plane and navigate rugged terrain. To prove impact origin, researchers needed to find either the meteorite itself—unlikely in a crater this large—or signs of intense pressure on surrounding rock. They quickly discovered shattercones and well-preserved impact melt rock, both hallmarks of a meteorite strike. Osinski expected the crater to be 38 to 200 million years old but was surprised to find it significantly older. The research team will present their findings at the Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Germany in less than a month.