Also I think I can explain why there is a massive crater on the planet.
Apparently the element resource fell from the sky a long time ago, and since we are talking about a game filled with animals from prehistory, falling meteors in the wasteland and terms such as extinction, I'd assume that a meteor caused the crater. (Not the crater in extinction, the crater we see on Earth if we go ghost mode during the aberration cutscene)
When the meteor struck the Earth, it caused an immense amount of damage to that side of the planet and started to leak element in the nearby area. Humans saw the new resource as a blueprint for incredible buildings such as skyscrapers, apartment complexes, etc. They also saw it as a weapon. Humans used the element to their advantage in wars, and eventually they realized that they were doomed.
If this crater is the origin of element making its way to Earth as we know it, this would certainly be some sort of landmark to visit sometime. For good reasons or bad? We dunno, but knowing the role element plays in the future, most likely bad. Very bad, with lots of death. Worse-than-respawn-cooldowns kind of bad.