An Integrated Remote Sensing Lineament Investigation of the Manicouagan Region, Canada: Implications for Planetary Cratering Processes

Remote sensing data were deployed to create a lineament map (LM) of central Quebec, Canada. The LM provides a first-order representation of the geological structures and is shown to co-align with 45% of the structural features previously mapped in the area. Areas displaying partial or no alignment are attributed to inconsistent structural surficial expressions, indistinguishable edge gradients, obscurity by water, and spatial offsets. Despite these challenges, the LM has extended published structural features and extracted a substantial number of new linear features. The LM allows for the distinction between pre-impact regional features from those generated by the Manicouagan impact event. Pre-impact fault systems facilitated a polygonal form to the structure, rendering Manicouagan a polygonal impact crater. Combined with field-based constraints, the LM results also reveal that the crater shows structural asymmetry, with more damage in the SW sector, expressed by enhanced concentric and radial faulting, and an elliptical collapsed transient cavity (orientated ∼70 km NE-SW and 85 km NW-SE). In addition, the central uplift is offset uprange from the geometric center to the NE and the central peak is breached, with a deeper footwall trench opening downrange to the SW. These observations indicate that Manicouagan may have been formed by a projectile traveling with a trajectory from the present-day NE at an oblique angle. The distinction of pre-impact target structures from impact-generated features on Earth has implications for better understanding these features on other solid planetary bodies, comparisons with which are made from craters on the Moon, Mars and Mercury.