Many lakes form in naturally occurring depressions or thanks to rivers, melting glaciers or you know…more things you learned about in geography class that we’ve forgotten now. But the Manicouagan Reservoir can be found in the Eye of Quebec which is actually an impact crater from a meteorite hitting the Earth.

The 5km wide meteorite hit the Earth (in a strange and beautiful land we now call Canada) around 213 million years ago. It’s possibly the 5th most powerful known impact on the Earth. It’s thought that the crater was once 100km wide but due to erosion, it’s now around 72km wide, which is still massive! In fact, the Manicouagan Reservoir is the second largest lake in the world! While this is not the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs (scientists have given it the big NOPE stamp when asked if it caused the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event), it certainly did cause a very big mess. As you can see!

The Eye of Quebec makes for excellent aerial photography and it’s actually visible from space so even astronauts can snap a good pic of it!