Large Impact Melt Flow Feature identified across the floor of Copernicus Crater by Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)

Details Large Impact Melt Flow Feature identified across the floor of Copernicus Crater by Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) Large Impact Melt Flow Feature identified across the floor of Copernicus Crater by Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p13d1690d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P13D-1690

Mathematics

Logic

[5420] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Impact Phenomena, Cratering, [5464] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Remote Sensing, [5470] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Surface Materials And Properties, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon

Scientific paper

Impact melt is normally one of the primary products of a large cratering event. The production of melt, its geographic distribution and the timing of its formation in the sequence of events during the cratering process depends on several parameters including size and velocity of the impactor, angle of impact, nature of pre-existing topography and target lithology. All of these parameters influence the size of the resulting crater as well as the character and fate of the melt produced during the event. We report here a very large impact melt flow feature across the floor of Copernicus crater identified with near-infrared spectra from M3. Copernicus is a relatively young impact crater ~100 km in diameter, located on the equatorial nearside of the Moon. The NW quadrant of the crater appears to contain a thick pool of impact melt. The new flow feature, with a length of ~30 km and flow lobes ~4-6 km wide, lies across the eastern portion of this melt deposit. Principal component analysis of M3 spectral data reveals this feature prominently in the 5th principal component. Spectroscopically, the flow feature differs from its surroundings mostly at longer M3 NIR wavelengths. Further analysis of the M3 data will focus on the compositional aspects and physical properties of this flow feature and its relation to nearby regions. An interesting aspect of the flow feature is its restricted occurrence between the northern wall and central peaks of the Copernicus crater. Several hypotheses, concerning this geologic setting, sourcing of the melt in the flow feature and its flow direction, are being explored. Two hypotheses in context of the melt sourcing include: 1) accumulation of the scattered melted material and drainage along a preferred slope or 2) fallback of large volume of melt that was lofted in a preferred direction during the impact event. The occurrence of such a large sized flow feature also suggests that the impact melt was very mobile and therefore probably poor in lithic clasts. The identification of the large impact melt flow feature on Copernicus floor provides new information about the generation, distribution, mobility and possibly timeline of impact melt emplacement. Further detailed analysis including integration of datasets from Kaguya Terrain Camera, LROC and LOLA is underway.

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