Buried Impact Basins as Constraints on the Thickness of Ridged Plains and Northern Lowland Plains on Mars

Details Buried Impact Basins as Constraints on the Thickness of Ridged Plains and Northern Lowland Plains on Mars Buried Impact Basins as Constraints on the Thickness of Ridged Plains and Northern Lowland Plains on Mars

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.p42a0551f&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #P42A-0551

Physics

5420 Impact Phenomena (Includes Cratering), 5480 Volcanism (8450), 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

The very large population of buried impact basins revealed by high resolution gridded Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data but which are not visible on Viking MDIMs provides information not only on the age of the subsurface on which these craters occur, but also on the thickness of the material which buries them. Assuming crater rims were not degraded prior to burial, and that relationships on rim height and crater depth versus crater diameter based on fresh martian craters (Garvin et al., 2000) apply, the minimum thickness of cover required to obscure a crater is derived from the expected rim height of the buried crater. The maximum thickness is found from the crater (rim to floor) depth; any greater thickness of material would eliminate all relief associated with that feature. We have used these relationships to estimate the thickness of younger plains which cover the heavily cratered and therefore ancient lowlands, and also to estimate the thickness of ridged plains in highland areas such as Lunae Planum. Buried basins in the northern lowlands suggest 1-2 km as a typical thickness of overlying plains material, but there is a wide range from < 0.5 km to likely >5 km (where buried basins are not seen near recent and likely thick volcanic flows). The varying distribution of buried basins of different sizes suggests significant variation in the thickness of the lowlands plains. In Lunae Planum both visible and buried craters are generally less than 50 km diameter. The absence of even buried craters >100 and 200 km across such as occur as both visible and buried features in adjacent Xanthe Terra suggests the thickness of ridged plains material could be in excess of 2-3 km. The smaller buried craters present in Lunae Planum indicate at least 0.3 to 0.4 km of overlying material. The fact that such small buried craters are seen suggests they may originate on a Middle or Late Noachian surface and not be Early Noachian, as is likely for many of the buried craters seen in Xanthe Terra.

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