Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p43d1708r&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P43D-1708
Physics
[5420] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Impact Phenomena, Cratering, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon
Scientific paper
Heavily cratered surfaces are ubiquitous in the solar system, and their statistical properties reveal the processes at work in creating and modifying them. We apply a cratered terrain model, which tracks elevation through time on a surface that accumulates craters in the presence of competing processes, to a fundamental question in planetary surfaces: how do the size-frequency distribution of emplaced craters, the spectral content due to crater shape, and diffusive smoothing at small scales combine to generate the power spectrum of a surface saturated with craters? We derive an analytic expression for the power spectral slope in cratering and diffusive equilibrium and test it with the model, parameterizing diffusion-due to cratering at small scales and seismic shaking-as a change in the height of the surface proportional to curvature per unit time. To constrain the value for the landscape diffusivity, we perform a sandblast test in which a gaussian hillslope is eroded over time by small impacts. We find that due to cratering alone, the sum of the size-frequency distribution exponent, α, and the slope of the power spectrum, β, should follow α+β~4.17, while diffusion decreases this value by a power of 2. Finally, we compare our results to topography measurements from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) and propose an interpretation for key observations: the high Hurst exponent (between ~0.8-1) and the widespread occurrence of a breakover point in the power spectrum near 1 km measured in the lunar highlands, as well as the complexity of the structure function in the maria.
Aharonson Oded
Rosenburg Margaret A.
Sari Re'em
Smith Douglas E.
Zuber Maria T.
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