Geological Society of America

T15 Impact Cratering across the Solar System

Monday, 26 October 2020
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Meeting Rooms

IDENTIFYING IMPACT MELT FROM SMYTHII CRATER: TOWARDS AN IMPROVED CHRONOLOGY FOR LARGE LUNAR BASIN FORMATION

Paper number: T15-12
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 4:10 PM – 4:20 PM

Authors

Lyle L. Nelson Presenting Author
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Daniel P. Moriarty
NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD
Kirby D. Runyon
Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD
Kirby D. Runyon
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Abstract

At ~820 km in diameter, Smythii Crater is one of the 43 large lunar basins >200 km diameter and one of ~30 large basins that is thought to have formed during the Pre-Nectarian period. We combine Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery and topography data with Moon Mineralogy Mapper compositional data to interpret the surface and subsurface geology of Smythii basin with the goal of identifying dateable impact melt from Smythii for investigation by a future lunar lander. Surface outcrops exposed on the central peak of the complex crater Schubert C are interpreted as uplifted deposits of Smythii impact melt, and a mission concept is presented for sampling these exposures in order to establish the absolute age of Smythii basin with radioisotopic geochronology. This mission concept is in line with one of the current top-tier priorities for lunar science: determining the age of large basins and thus constraining the impact flux during the Moon’s first billion years, which is a proxy record for the role of impacts on the surface environment and habitability of early Earth.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 52, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2020AM-354668

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