He searched for a campsite on Google Maps - and discovered something 390 million years old

A Canadian astronomy enthusiast discovered an ancient meteorite impact crater while searching for a campsite on Google Maps. Joël Lapointe noticed a ring of mountains around a lake in Quebec, contacted scientists, and an expedition in October 2025 found evidence of an impact from 390 million years ago. The crater, named Ouhatik, is about 25 kilometers in diameter.

A Canadian astronomy enthusiast, Joël Lapointe, discovered an ancient meteorite impact crater while searching for a campsite on Google Maps. In 2024, while scanning the northern Canada region, Lapointe noticed a giant ring of mountains around Lake Marcel in Quebec. He contacted geophysicist Pierre Rochette, and later planetary geologist Gordon Osinski from Western University in Canada joined. In October 2025, a research expedition went to Lake Marcel and found special rock formations known as 'shatter cones,' which are unequivocal evidence of a meteorite impact. The crater, named 'Ouhatik,' reaches about 25 kilometers in diameter, and its age is estimated at 390 million years. It is the largest crater discovered since 2018. Lapointe, who is not a professional crater researcher, said the discovery proves that even a person without training in a specific field can notice something that experts missed.