Gravitational signatures of lunar floor-fractured craters

Thorey, C.; Michaut, Chloé; Wieczorek, M. A.

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2015.04.021

Cited by 30 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…The high ratio of intrusive to extrusive material has parallels in the smaller floor fractured craters that are common on the Moon (Jozwiak et al, 2017(Jozwiak et al, , 2015Thorey et al, 2015). We note that the gravity anomaly in the northeast quadrant of the Outer Rook likely includes some contribution from the extrusive Lacus Veris mare.…”

Section: Gravity Gradientsmentioning

confidence: 67%

Ring faults and ring dikes around the Orientale basin on the Moon

Andrews-Hanna

Head

Johnson

et al. 2018

Icarus

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Section: Gravity Gradientsmentioning

confidence: 67%

Ring faults and ring dikes around the Orientale basin on the Moon

Andrews-Hanna

Head

Johnson

et al. 2018

Icarus

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“…Crater counts at the crater Tsiolkovsky indeed indicates that mare lavas were erupted soon after crater formation (Mouginis-Mark & Boyce, 2017). On the Moon, complex craters in the Highlands generally show negative Bouguer gravity anomalies independently of their age and intermediate-sized craters seem only partially compensated (Reindler & Arkani-Hamed, 2001;Soderblom et al, 2015;Thorey et al, 2015), suggesting that the crust can support the stress caused by unloading over a timescale longer than 10 8 years. This one depends on the lithosphere thermal state but is particularly large for the Moon, larger than for the Earth, because of its small radius (Zhang & Zuber, 2000).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magma Ascent and Eruption Triggered by Cratering on the Moon

Michaut

Pinel

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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On the Moon, the low‐density crust exerts a strong filter to magma ascent. Many lunar craters are filled with mare, and evidence of pyroclastic activity and shallow magmatism is often located within craters called floor‐fractured craters (FFCs). Interpreting quantitative observations on mare‐filled craters and FFCs based on mechanical models, we show that a surface unloading caused by an impact crater provides a driving overpressure to the magma stalling at depth. This overpressure counterbalances the melt negative buoyancy, favoring its ascent through the crust. Providing a large unloading and a thin crust, magma can ascend up to the crater floor. FFC characteristics are consistent with a magma denser than the crust by 200–300 kg/m3 and an elastic lithosphere thickness larger than 70 km. Our study suggests that small impact cratering likely induced magmatism and thereby crustal evolution in the early times of terrestrial planets.

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“…This range represents the two endmember assumptions made, either pure intrusions due to post-magma ocean igneous activity, or material that originated in the mantle. Floor-fractured craters (Jozwiak et al, 2012(Jozwiak et al, , 2015(Jozwiak et al, , 2016Thorey et al, 2015) and other structures also provide evidence for shallow magmatic intrusions and sill formation, though they do not provide specific constraints on the fractional volume of intrusives in the lunar crust more generally. This end-member interpretation is tested against the model results by assuming that the modeled mean +2 fraction range of intrusive material should not exceed 100%, but with the preferred result that the modeled mean +1σ fraction of intrusive material should not exceed the expected range obtained from remote sensing (Crites and Lucey, 2015) of 45%.…”

Section: Analysis Of the Inversion Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-scale density variations in the lunar crust revealed by GRAIL

Jansen

Andrews-Hanna

et al. 2017

Icarus

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Data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission have revealed that ~98% of the power of the gravity signal of the Moon at high spherical harmonic degrees correlates with the topography. The remaining 2% of the signal, which cannot be explained by topography, contains information about density variations within the crust. These high-degree Bouguer gravity anomalies are likely caused by small-scale (10's of km) shallow density variations. Here we use gravity inversions to model the small-scale three-dimensional https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20170003155 2019-06-07T05:41:52+00:00Z 2 variations in the density of the lunar crust. Inversion results from three non-descript areas yield shallow density variations in the range of 100-200 kg/m 3 . Three end-member scenarios of variations in porosity, intrusions into the crust, and variations in bulk crustal composition were tested as possible sources of the density variations. We find that the density anomalies can be caused entirely by changes in porosity. Characteristics of density anomalies in the South PoleAitken basin also support porosity as a primary source of these variations. Mafic intrusions into the crust could explain many, but not all of the anomalies. Additionally, variations in crustal composition revealed by spectral data could only explain a small fraction of the density anomalies. Nevertheless, all three sources of density variations likely contribute. Collectively, results from this study of GRAIL gravity data, combined with other studies of remote sensing data and lunar samples, show that the lunar crust exhibits variations in density by ±10% over scales ranging from centimeters to 100's of kilometers.

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Gravitational signatures of lunar floor-fractured craters

Cited by 30 publications

References 29 publications

Ring faults and ring dikes around the Orientale basin on the Moon

Ring faults and ring dikes around the Orientale basin on the Moon

Magma Ascent and Eruption Triggered by Cratering on the Moon

Small-scale density variations in the lunar crust revealed by GRAIL

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