West Hawk
Key facts
- Country
- Canada
- Diameter
- 2.44 km
- Age
- about 351 ± 20 million years
- Location
- 49.77° N, 95.18° W
West Hawk Lake, a round, unusually deep lake about 2.4 km across in Whiteshell Provincial Park, eastern Manitoba, popular for swimming and diving.
West Hawk Lake, in Whiteshell Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba, Canada, fills a simple impact crater about 2.4 km across. At about 115 m it is the deepest lake in Manitoba, because the crater bowl is far deeper than the glacial hollows that hold most lakes in the region.
Discovery. The round shape and great depth of the lake suggested a crater. In the 1960s geologists drilled into the lake bed and found a lens of broken rock, breccia, filling the bottom of the bowl, together with quartz grains showing shock features. These confirmed that the lake fills an impact crater.
What it hit. The impactor struck ancient crystalline rocks of the Canadian Shield, mainly granite and metamorphosed volcanic rock more than 2.5 billion years old.
Age. Dating of the impact rocks gives an age of about 351 million years, in the early Carboniferous, with an uncertainty of about 20 million years.
Why it matters. West Hawk is a clear example of a simple crater: a bowl filled partly with fallen-back rubble, without a central peak. Ice sheets have scoured it many times, yet its basin survives. The impactor is unknown.
Visiting. The lake has campgrounds, beaches and boat launches and is a popular site for scuba divers. Cold, deep water can be dangerous; swim and dive safely.
Did you know?
At about 115 m, West Hawk Lake is the deepest lake in Manitoba.
It is a popular site for scuba diving.
Drilling into the lake bed found broken rock filling the crater bowl.