Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Northern Research Supplement

Space is anything but empty. In addition to the eight planets, there are countless moons and many thousands of asteroids in the inner Solar System, as well as the occasional visiting comet. Dust and small pieces of rock (or meteorites) pass through the Earth's atmosphere every day without notice. Every now and again, however, a larger asteroid or comet may cross paths with the Earth with cataclysmic results. Even ""small"" meteorite impact events can sterilize the Earth's surface for many hundreds of square kilometres. The big events are thankfully less common but are much more destructive. When a 10 kilometre wide asteroid struck what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, 65 million years ago, over half of all species on Earth were wiped out, including the dinosaurs. Many scientists have studied these destructive effects of meteorite impact events. One of the less well-known aspects of impact craters is that they also have hidden benefits. Impact craters can provide warm, wet niches for microbial life and may have even been a place where life may have originated on Earth, and other planets such as Mars. Impact events can also generate economic mineral and hydrocarbon deposits, which is important in a country such as Canada with our strong mining and petroleum industries. The guiding principle of this research program is to investigate these beneficial scientific, social, and economic effects of meteorite impact events. Five meteorite impact craters in northern Canada (Alberta, Labrador, Nunavut, and Quebec) will be investigated. In addition to generating new knowledge and research of remote regions of Canada, there will be a strong emphasis on education and public awareness and engaging northern communities.