Tectonic Complexity in Mercury's Impact Features

Mercury's surface is covered with impact craters, many of which have been flooded by lavas. A subset of flooded impact features host tectonic structures -- graben (shown in red in the figure above) and ridges and scarps (blue) -- that formed during or after volcanic infilling. Such impact features range from so-called "ghost craters" through medium-sized basins such as Mozart, to the largest basins on Mercury, including Rembrandt and the mighty Caloris. Mapping these structures, and so characterizing their nature and spatial and temporal distributions, helps scientists understand the processes responsible for the tectonic complexity within volcanically infilled craters and basins on Mercury.

Date released: February 1, 2013
Center Latitude: (a) 60.3°, (b) 7.8°, (c) -33.5°, (d) 30°
Center Longitude: (a) 36.7° E, (b) 169.6° E, (c) 88°E, (d) 161°E
Projection: Orthographic

Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Caloris Basin Tectonic Map

The large Caloris basin hosts a wide variety of tectonic features, including graben, ridges, and Pantheon Fossae. MESSENGER team members are in the process of mapping the tectonic features within the Caloris basin and deciphering their complicated relationships. The tectonic map shown here was published in the abstracts of the 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which is being held this week in The Woodlands, Texas. In total, MESSENGER team members are presenting 57 papers at this conference.

Center Latitude: 31°
Center Longitude: 163° E
Scale: Caloris basin has a diameter of 1,550 kilometers (960 miles)
Reference: From abstract #1722 by Paul K. Byrne and coauthors at the 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

Map credit: Byrne et al. (2012). A tectonic survey of the Caloris basin, Mercury. 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands, Texas, abstract #1722.