TY - JOUR
T1 - Controls on the formation of lunar multiring basins
AU - Johnson, Brandon C.
AU - Andrews-Hanna, Jeffrey C.
AU - Collins, Gareth S.
AU - Freed, Andrew M.
AU - Melosh, H. J.
AU - Zuber, Maria T.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank W. B. McKinnon and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments. We thank the developers of iSALE, including Kai Wünnemann, Dirk Elbeshausen, Tom Davison, and Boris Ivanov. Some plots in this work were created with the pySALEPlot tool written by Tom Davison. B. C. J. was supported by grant 80NSSC17K0341 from the NASA Lunar Data Analysis Program. G. S. C. was supported by UK Science and Technology Facilities Council grant ST/N000803/1. The iSALE code is not open access; it is distributed on a case-by-case basis to academic users in the impact community, strictly for noncommercial use. Scientists interested in using or developing iSALE should see www.isale-code.de for details of how to request access. Model input and output from this work are available at the Harvard Dataverse, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JUCVXW.
Publisher Copyright:
©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Multiring basins dominate the crustal structure, tectonics, and stratigraphy of the Moon. Understanding how these basins form is crucial for understanding the evolution of ancient planetary crusts. To understand how preimpact thermal structure and crustal thickness affect the formation of multiring basins, we simulate the formation of lunar basins and their rings under a range of target and impactor conditions. We find that ring locations, spacing, and offsets are sensitive to lunar thermal gradient (strength of the lithosphere), temperature of the deep lunar mantle (strength of the asthenosphere), and preimpact crustal thickness. We also explore the effect of impactor size on the formation of basin rings and reproduce the observed transition from peak-ring basins to multiring basins and reproduced many observed aspects of ring spacing and location. Our results are in broad agreement with the ring tectonic theory for the formation of basin rings and also suggest that ring tectonic theory applies to the rim scarp of smaller peak-ring basins.
AB - Multiring basins dominate the crustal structure, tectonics, and stratigraphy of the Moon. Understanding how these basins form is crucial for understanding the evolution of ancient planetary crusts. To understand how preimpact thermal structure and crustal thickness affect the formation of multiring basins, we simulate the formation of lunar basins and their rings under a range of target and impactor conditions. We find that ring locations, spacing, and offsets are sensitive to lunar thermal gradient (strength of the lithosphere), temperature of the deep lunar mantle (strength of the asthenosphere), and preimpact crustal thickness. We also explore the effect of impactor size on the formation of basin rings and reproduce the observed transition from peak-ring basins to multiring basins and reproduced many observed aspects of ring spacing and location. Our results are in broad agreement with the ring tectonic theory for the formation of basin rings and also suggest that ring tectonic theory applies to the rim scarp of smaller peak-ring basins.
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U2 - 10.1029/2018JE005765
DO - 10.1029/2018JE005765
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85062265670
VL - 123
SP - 3035
EP - 3050
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
SN - 2169-9097
IS - 11
ER -