It is the highest-latitude terrestrial impact crater known on land (75°22'N, 89°41'W). It lies in the “frost rubble zone” of the Earth, i.e. in a polar desert environment which approximates in several respects the conditions that may have prevailed at the surface of Mars earlier in its history, when wetter and warmer conditions might have existed.

Devon Island forms a part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands grouped between Baffin Bay and the Arctic Ocean. Not only does the island exhibit geological and glacial features which resemble features found on Mars, it is largely snow and ice free in summer and its daytime temperatures are similar to those of a “summer” day on Mars.
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