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magazine / ja07
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July/August 2007 issue |
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| IMAGE: TERRAMETRICS, INC. (WWW.TRUEARTH.COM) |
Alien territory
Devon Island's otherworldly geography stands in for the red planet
By Joanna Fultz
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| MAP: STEVEN FICK/CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC |
Nunavut's Devon Island is the world's largest uninhabited island, with only scattered herds of muskox and caribou,
birds and foxes calling it home. In this satellite image, its twisted canyons, valleys and eroded carbonate rocks give the remote landscape a certain alien-like quality.
But it is the Haughton Crater that is the star of Devon's extraterrestrial features. Identified as a meteorite impact
crater in 1973, it has been home to the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) for the past decade. With funding from nasa and the
Canadian Space Agency, HMP scientists are investigating the parallels between the crater, the island and the red planet to develop
strategies and technologies for the future exploration of Mars.
Thirty-nine million years ago, a comet plowed 1.7 kilometres deep into the land, releasing a plume of partially liquefied and
vapourized rock in its wake. After millions of years, the climate cooled and the crater was permeated by ground ice, which helped
preserve the now 20-kilometre-wide formation.
Pascal Lee, lead scientist with HMP, says Haughton's exceptional preservation, and its location in a polar desert, drove
nasa scientists to start studying Devon Island back in 1997 as a possible physical analogue to Mars.
The human drive to explore has long been a part of the island's history, says Lee, whether by Inuit or expeditioners such
as American Frederick Cook, who overwintered on Devon in 1908-09 as he returned from his attempt to reach the North Pole.
"This place is really very special," says Lee. "It has an otherworld feel. There's a long connection between Devon Island and
human exploration of extreme places, and here we are, learning how to explore Mars with humans in the future."
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