Manicouagan Reservoir (also Lake Manicouagan ; ) is an

annular lake An impact crater lake is a lake inside a depression caused by the impact of a meteor. It is also known as an annular lake in cases where the water body is shaped like a ring, as many impact crater lakes are. Examples One of the largest impa ...

in central

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada, covering an area of . The

lake island A lake island is any landmass within a lake. It is a type of inland island. Lake islands may form a lake archipelago. Formation Lake islands may form in numerous ways. They may occur through a build-up of sedimentation as shoals, and become t ...

in its centre is known as

René-Levasseur Island René-Levasseur Island is a large island in the centre of Lake Manicouagan in Quebec, Canada. Its highest peak is Mount Babel, at 952 m (3,123 feet), which is contained in the Louis-Babel Ecological Reserve. With a total area of 2,020& ...

, and its highest point is Mount Babel. The structure was created 214 (±1) million years ago, in the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...

, by the impact of a meteorite in diameter. The lake and island are clearly seen from space and are sometimes called the "eye of Quebec". The lake has a volume of .

Geography

Manicouagan Reservoir in winter by Sentinel-2

The reservoir is located in

Manicouagan Regional County Municipality Manicouagan () is a regional county municipality in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River with its seat in Baie-Comeau. It was created in 1981, and named after the Manicouagan River. ...

in the

Côte-Nord Côte-Nord (Region 09) (, ; ) is an List of regions of Quebec, administrative region of Quebec, on the Quebec-Labrador peninsula, Quebec-Labrador Peninsula, Canada. The region runs along the St. Lawrence River and then the Gulf of St. Lawrence, ...

region of Quebec, Canada, about north of the city of

Baie-Comeau Baie-Comeau () is a city in the Côte-Nord region of the province of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, and is the seat of Manicouagan Regional County Municipality. It is near the mouth of the Manicouagan Ri ...

, although its northernmost part is located in

Caniapiscau Regional County Municipality Caniapiscau () is a regional county municipality in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. The seat is Fermont. The census groups Caniapiscau RCM with neighbouring Sept-Rivières into the single census division of Sept-Rivières—Caniapisca ...

Quebec Route 389 Quebec's Route 389 connects Quebec Route 138, Route 138 adjacent to Baie-Comeau with the Newfoundland and Labrador border, connecting with the Trans-Labrador Highway (Newfoundland and Labrador provincial route 500) to Wabush and Labrador City, an ...

passes the eastern shore of the lake. The crater is a multiple-ring structure about across, with the reservoir at its diameter inner ring being its most prominent feature. It surrounds an inner island plateau called

and Mount Babel is the highest peak of the island, at above sea level and above the reservoir level. The

Louis-Babel Ecological Reserve Louis-Babel Ecological Reserve is an ecological reserve on René-Levasseur Island in Quebec, Canada. It is named after Canadian priest Louis Babel. It was established on January 30, 1991.impact crater An impact crater is a depression (geology), depression in the surface of a solid astronomical body formed by the hypervelocity impact event, impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal c ...

(

Impact structure An impact structure is a generally circular or craterlike geologic structure of deformed bedrock or sediment produced by impact on a planetary surface, whatever the stage of erosion of the structure. In contrast, an impact crater is the surface e ...

). The crater was formed following the impact of an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

with a diameter of , which excavated a crater originally about wide, although erosion and deposition of sediments have since reduced the visible diameter to about . It is the Earth's sixth-largest confirmed impact structure according to rim-to-rim diameter. Mount Babel is interpreted as the central peak of the crater, formed by post-impact uplift. 1992 radiometric dating has estimated that impact melt within the impact structure has an age of 214 ± 1 million years. A later estimate found an age of 215.4 ± 0.16 Ma. As this is more than 12 million years before the end of the Triassic, the impact that produced the crater cannot have been the cause of the

Triassic–Jurassic extinction event The Triassic–Jurassic (Tr-J) extinction event (TJME), often called the end-Triassic extinction, marks the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, . It represents one of five major extinction events during the Phanerozoic, profoundly ...

Multiple impact event claims

It was suggested that the Manicouagan crater may have been part of a multiple

impact event An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. Impact events have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or meteoroids and have minimal effe ...

, similar to the well-observed string of impacts of

Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 ( formally designated D/1993 F2) was a comet that broke apart in July 1992 and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects. ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

in 1994. The theory suggests this event also formed the

Rochechouart impact structure Rochechouart impact structure or Rochechouart astrobleme is an impact structure in France. Erosion has over the millions of years mostly destroyed its impact crater, the initial surface expression of the asteroid impact, leaving highly deformed ...

in France, the

Saint Martin crater Saint Martin is an impact structure in Manitoba, Canada. It is located in the northern part of the Rural Municipality of Grahamdale, northwest of Lake St. Martin. The impact structure is in diameter and its age was determined to be 227.8 ± 1.1 ...

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

, the

Obolon' crater Obolon' crater () is a diameter buried meteorite impact crater situated about southeast of Kyiv in Ukraine (Poltava Oblast). The site has been drilled, which revealed the presence of shocked minerals and impact melt rock; the high chlorine conte ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, and the

Red Wing crater Red Wing or Red Wing Creek structure is a meteor crater located in McKenzie County, North Dakota, about southwest of Watford City, North Dakota, United States. History The crater is not exposed to the surface, but was discovered using seismic ...

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

; however, more recent work has found that the craters formed many millions of years apart, with the Saint Martin crater dating to 227.8 ± 1.1 Ma, while the Rochechouart structure formed 206.92 ± 0.20/0.32 Ma.

Hydroelectric project

The Manicouagan Reservoir as it presently exists was created in the 1960s, by flooding the earlier Lake Mushalagan (Mouchalagan) to the west of the central plateau and then-smaller Manicouagan to the east, by construction of the Daniel-Johnson dam. The works were part of the enormous Manicouagan or Manic series of

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

projects undertaken by

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec () is a Canadian Crown corporations of Canada#Quebec, Crown corporation public utility headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. It manages the electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission and electricity ...

, the provincial electrical utility. The complex of dams is also called the Manic-Outardes Project because the rivers involved are the Manicouagan and the Outardes. The reservoir acts as a giant headpond for the Manicouagan River, feeding the

Jean-Lesage generating station The Jean-Lesage generating station, (French: Centrale Jean-Lesage) formerly known as Manic-2, is a dam located 22 km from Baie-Comeau built on Manicouagan River in Quebec, Canada. It was constructed between 1961 and 1967. On June 22, 2010, t ...

(Manic-2), René-Lévesque generating station (Manic-3), and Daniel-Johnson Dam ( Manic-5) generating stations downstream. In the peak period of the winter cold, the lake surface is usually lower, since the

turbines A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...

run all the time at peak load to meet the huge electrical heating needs of the province. The surface of the lake also experiences low levels in the extreme periods of heat in

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

during the summer, since in that period Hydro-Québec sells electrical energy to the joint New England grid and individual utilities in the United States.

References

External links

Manicouagan
at Earth Impact Database
Manicouagan Impact Structure
at Crater Explorer * *

{{Impact cratering on Earth Impact craters of Quebec Triassic impact craters Manicouagan-Outardes hydroelectric project Reservoirs in Quebec Biosphere reserves of Canada Lakes of Côte-Nord Impact crater lakes

Geography

Multiple impact event claims

Hydroelectric project

See also

References

External links