Stratigraphy and Surface Ages on Iapetus

Details Stratigraphy and Surface Ages on Iapetus Stratigraphy and Surface Ages on Iapetus

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.0604s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #6.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.418

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

The examination of the geologic history of Iapetus is a major goal of the Cassini imaging experiment (ISS). Crater counting for the determination of model ages is a powerful tool to understand stratigraphic relationships between different terrain units. The shapes of the measured crater-size frequency distributions follow very closely the distribution of Earth's moon (after correction for the different impact conditions; Neukum et al. 2006), justifying its usage here for model age determinations.
Following the models of Castillo-Rogez et al. (2007) and Neukum et al. (2006), an age of 4.4 Gyr is expected for the oldest parts of Iapetus’ surface. Based on these models, we measured different ages at neighboring morphologic units. A small part of the ridge near 96°W longitude and an "average" dark terrain sample north of the ridge shows dense cratering, indicating the most ancient surface ( 4.4 Gyr). The surroundings of the "landslide" crater (diameter 120 km; 6°N/36°W) in the south western part of a huge basin and a large, 420 km diameter basin on the leading side of Iapetus (34°N, 80°W) appear slightly younger ( 4.3 Gyr). The "landslide" crater and the landslide itself are sparsely cratered with a model age of 4.1 Gyr. These might be among the youngest areas on Iapetus.
New high-resolution imagery data from the targeted flyby are expected for mid-September (see abstract by Denk et al., this meeting), with spatial resolutions down to 10 m/pxl. We expect to present first results at the meeting.
References:
Castillo-Rogez J.C., et al. (2007), Icarus, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2007.02.018.
Denk, T., et al. (2007), DPS, this conference.
Neukum, G., et al. (2006), 1st EPSC, Berlin, p.610.

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