Strange Boom, Ice Craters and “Frozen Waves” in Newfoundland

© 2013 by Linda Moulton Howe

“We've looked all around (1st ice crater in Dawes Pond).
There doesn't appear to be anything else that could have
caused this except something that fell out of the sky.”

- Jim Gillard, Manager, Twillingate Astronomical
Observatory, Badger, Newfoundland

Strange “frozen waves” near the second crater in 2-foot-thick ice,
this one at Powderhorn Lake, photogaphed by cabin owner
Peter Butler on Sunday, March 10, 2013.

Dawes Pond and Powerhorn Lake are about four miles apart
at the Google map pointer near Badger, Newfoundland, Canada.

March 13, 2013  Dawes Pond and Powderhorn Lake, Badger, central Newfoundland, Canada - Two mysterious ice craters surrounded by odd, rising ice patterns that resemble frozen waves have been reported by cabin owners living about four miles apart, one on Dawes Pond and the second on Powderhorn Lake - both near Badger, Newfoundland, Canada.

First Ice Crater Discovery After Loud Boom
Early Friday AM, March 8, 2013,
Dawes Pond, Badger, Newfoundland, Canada

Dawes Pond covered with 2-foot-2-inches-thick ice in which something
penetrated and left the crater in lower left corner, surrounded by what appear
to be a pattern of frozen waves. The crater hole measures 180 feet by
197 feet (55 meters by 60 meters), first discovered early Friday morning,
March 8, 2013, after a resident reported hearing a very loud boom around
Dawes Pond on Thursday night, March 7, or early Friday morning.
Image © 2013 by Lindsay Bird/CBC News.

Jim Gillard, amateur astronomer, reported to CBC News in Canada that he found a crater and strange ice ripples in Dawes Pond early Friday morning, March 8, 2013, not long after another local man said he heard a loud boom in the area late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Puzzled, Gillard told CBC News that he could find no evidence of a meteor impact and wondered if a heavy object had fallen from an orbiting satellite or overhead airplane.

However, soon after on Sunday, March 10, the same type of ice crater with “frozen waves” was reported by a cabin owner at another lake known as Powderhorn Lake some four miles east of
Dawes Pond.

2nd Ice Crater Discovered, Sunday, March 10, 2013,
Powderhorn Lake, Badger, Newfoundland

Powderhorn Lake, center circle is east about 4 miles from Dawes Pond
and northwest of Badger, Newfoundland, lower right.

Peter Butler was leaving his cabin on Powderhorn Lake on Sunday evening, March 10, 2013, when he stopped to stare at thick pond ice that puzzled him. “It does appear that something punctured the ice and caused waves to form and travel over the ice.” Butler also heard a loud boom noise in the early hours of Thursday morning, March 7, 2013, - was it the same boom heard near Dawes Pond? - and wondered if there was a connection between the loud noise and the ice crater.

Butler told CBC News the hole was “circular and about 98 feet (30 meters) across. There were ripples in the edge of the ice hole.”

Strange “frozen waves” near a second ice crater at Powderhorn Lake,
photogaphed by cabin owner Peter Butler on Sunday, March 10, 2013.

Jim Gillard, amateur astronomer and manager of the Twillingate Astronomical Observatory, dismissed the meteorite theory because he could find no physical traces. Gary Dymond - another amateur astronomer and a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador representative with the Meteorite Impact Advisory Committee, told CBC News that he didn't find any signs of meteor impact either. He looked for small, black rocky fragments and checked online for any reports of space or aircraft debris in the Badger region, but there were none.

Dymond wondered if there could have been methane gas underneath the ice in both the frozen pond and frozen lake that exploded. But concluded the two ice craters in two different iced over water bodies only a couple of days apart is a true mystery. “I think it will stay as a mystery.”