Other
Scientific paper
Apr 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja.....7354h&link_type=abstract
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #7354
Other
Scientific paper
Because Nature stamps circular markers -- impact craters -- onto planetary surfaces at roughly known rates, and therefore the obliteration of these features gives us a tool to characterize a planets rate of erosion/obliteration of surface topography. The lack of obliteration mechanisms on the moon, other than crater saturation effects, means that the lunar surface gives an excellent calibration surface. Both the Earth and Mars show significant losses of small craters, relevant to the moon, with Earth's loss rates being orders of magnitude larger. Öpik (1966, Science 153, 255) and Hartmann (1966, Icarus 5, 565) pointed out that Martian craters would be lost due to dust infill processes, and that this would cause faster loss of smaller craters -- essentially reducing the slope of the cumulative or log-differential crater diameter distribution (craters/km^2 versus diameter) by unity. This effect was seen in early Mariner and Viking images at sizes down to a few hundred meters, and has now been confirmed in Mars Global Surveyor images at sizes down to 10 m (Hartmann 1999, Meteor. Planet. Sci. 34, 167; Hartmann and Neukum 2001, Space Sci. Rev. 96, 165). Hartmann (1966, Icarus 5, 565) therefore defined the concept of "crater retention age" as the age of the oldest craters visible on a surface. On uneroded surfaces like young lava flows, it is the age of the surface itself, but in older, eroded areas, it depends on the diameter of the crater, and measures the duration through which features last, under the given obliteration conditions. Martian crater counts in the most heavily cratered areas confirm that virtually everywhere on Mars, craters in mid-size ranges 300 m to 45 km are at densities less than saturation, due to erosive/obliterative losses. (Craters above 45 km are preserved from 4 Gy ago and are near saturation, and craters below 300 m are on the steep part of the size distribution, and so numerous that they are in saturation except in young areas.) These conditions allow for measurement of the mean lifetime of craters of different sizes, either under global average Martian conditions, or in specific regions. Applying these ideas we have preliminary measurements for average net infill rates of Martian craters of 0.05 to 2 m per million years. Modeling may test whether net effective infill rates were higher in Noachian time.
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