Evolution of the Rembrandt Impact Basin on Mercury (original) (raw)
ADS
;
- Head, James W. ;
- Solomon, Sean C. ;
- Robinson, Mark S. ;
- Chapman, Clark R. ;
- Denevi, Brett W. ;
- Fassett, Caleb I. ;
- Murchie, Scott L. ;
- Strom, Robert G.
Abstract
MESSENGER’s second Mercury flyby revealed a ~715-kilometer-diameter impact basin, the second-largest well-preserved basin-scale impact structure known on the planet. The Rembrandt basin is comparable in age to the Caloris basin, is partially flooded by volcanic plains, and displays a unique wheel-and-spoke-like pattern of basin-radial and basin-concentric wrinkle ridges and graben. Stratigraphic relations indicate a multistaged infilling and deformational history involving successive or overlapping phases of contractional and extensional deformation. The youngest deformation of the basin involved the formation of a ~1000-kilometer-long lobate scarp, a product of the global cooling and contraction of Mercury.
Publication:
Science
Pub Date:
May 2009
DOI:
Bibcode:
Keywords:
- PLANET SCI