The Abundance of Large, Copernican-Age Craters on the Moon

Details The Abundance of Large, Copernican-Age Craters on the Moon The Abundance of Large, Copernican-Age Craters on the Moon

Mar 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996lpi....27..899m&link_type=abstract

Lunar and Planetary Science, volume 27, page 899

Statistics

2

Clementine, Craters: Statistics, Galileo, Impacts, Moon

Scientific paper

Recent studies have brought into question the size-frequency distribution of Copernican-age lunar craters. In particular, several large near-side craters that have been mapped as Copernican in the compilation of Wilhelms are probably older, on the basis of the size-frequency distribution of superposed craters. The craters were mapped as Copernican at least in part because of the presence of bright rays. However, the rays are only apparent over dark mare terrains, and are probably due to highlands materials excavated and deposited over the maria rather than being due to immature soils. The geologically-mapped population of large Copernican craters has also been suspect due to the apparent deficiency of these craters on the far side when compared with the near side. The far side contains very little maria, and provides a more uniform canvas to record bright-rayed craters. With the recent receipt of high-resolution and high-sun multispectral images of the far side by Clementine, it is now possible to re-evaluate the size-frequency distribution of far-side rayed craters, which are of likely Copernican age. We find a systematically lower density of far-side Copernican craters than the previous whole-Moon counts, especially at the larger sizes. We find that several large craters were previously misidentified as having bright rays due to the superposition of smaller rayed craters. These results have implications for the age of Venus' surface and the frequency and severity of impact-induced extinctions and climate changes on the Earth.

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