Late Quaternary seismo-stratigraphy of Lake Wanapitei, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada: Arguments for a possible meteorite impact origin

Lake Wanapitei (132.75 km2) fills what has been identified as an Eocene (c. 37 Ma) meteorite impact basin in the Canadian Shield near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The area was glaciated many times during the Pleistocene and the basin lies immediately north of the prominent Cartier Moraine built during the last glaciation by the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet some 11,000 years ago. Study of the deeper geophysics of the basin using magnetic and gravity techniques, and confirmation of its origin, is hampered by lack of data regarding water depths, the form of the bedrock surface and the thickness and character of glacial and postglacial sediment. To this end, more than 300 km of high-resolution single channel seismic chirp and 200 kHz bathymetric data were collected from the basin in the summer of 2002. Water depths reach a maximum of 118 m and acoustic basement is defined by a glacially scoured bedrock surface. The overlying Pleistocene sediment fill exceeds 35 m in thickness and consists of a lowermost late-glacial succession of rhythmically laminated silty clays deposited when the basin was flooded by a deep and regionally extensive ice dammed water body (Glacial Lake Algonquin). Truncation of the upper surface of this succession across large parts of the lake floor records the drainage of Lake Algonquin and the isolation of Wanapitei Lake as a separate water body. Overlying Holocene sediment is up to 10 m thick but is markedly discontinuous and commonly occurs as mounded ‘drifts’ reflecting strong bottom currents and low inputs of modern sediment. The presence of apparently undisturbed Precambrian bedrock below large portions of the lake basin places significant constraints on the dimensions of any meteorite impact structure.