Plaque Location
The District of Nipissing
The Township of Papineau-Cameron
At a lookout tower on the eastern rim of the crater,
Brent Road, approximately 6 km northeast of the village
of Brent - near the northern edge of Algonquin Park,
about 32 km south of Highway 17
Plaque Text
First recognized in 1951 from aerial
photographs, the crater is a circular depression about
two miles in diameter formed in Precambrian crystalline
rocks. Geophysical and diamond drilling investigations
show that the crater has a present depth of about 1,400
feet but is partly filled by sedimentary rocks with a
thickness of 900 feet. The rocks beneath the crater
floor are thoroughly fragmented over a depth of 2,000
feet. Like the similar New Quebec (Chubb) crater, the
Brent crater is attributed to the high speed impact of a
giant meteorite. It is calculated that the impact
released energy equaling 250 megatons of TNT and
occurred about 450 million years ago when this area was
probably covered by a shallow sea.
