Impact cratering rate consistency test from ages of layered ejecta on Mars

Mars/moon Cratering Rate Ratio Estimates

This article presents a method to adapt the lunar production function, i.e. the frequency of impacts with a given size of a formed crater as discussed by Neukum et al. (2001), to Mars. This requires to study the nature of crater-forming projectiles, the impact rate difference, and the scaling laws for the impact crater formation. These old-standing questions are reviewed, and examples for the r...

South Polar Layered Deposits of Mars: The cratering record

[1] Data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) and Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) instruments aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) were used in a detailed search of a selected part of the South Polar Layered Deposits (SPLD) for impact craters. Impact craters with diameters from 0.8 to 5 km were identified from a MOLA-derived shaded relief map and were primarily validated using individual MOL...

Ejecta mobility of layered ejecta craters on Mars: Assessing the influence of snow and ice deposits

The unusual lobate ejecta deposits of martian impact craters have led to several proposed fluidization mechanisms to explain their morphology. Of the fluidized ejecta craters, double-layered ejecta (DLE) craters, believed to form in a decameters-thick surface ice layer, appear to have anomalously large and highly variable ejecta mobility (EM) ratios. We propose that low-aspect-ratio layered eje...

Martian Impact Cratering and Martian Layered Sediments

Global Dispersion of Dust following Impact Cratering Events on Mars

Cho, S. T. Stewart, and M. I. Richardson. Carnegie Institution of Washington (Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, 5241 Broad Branch Road, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20015, [email protected]), Harvard University (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 20 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, [email protected]), California Institute of Technology (Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences,...