March 19, 2021

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Limb Basins

Originally published July 31, 2011 LPOD-Jul31-11.jpg
image by Avani Soares, Canoas, RS, Brazil

Three basins squeeze into this limb image, and smaller ponds of mare lavas leaked out into crater floors and other low lands. Crisium and maria Undarum and Spumans, which formed inside Crisium's outer ring, occupy the bottom half of the image. At top left is a small portion of the poorly defined Marginis Basin, and south of that is a dramatic terminator view of the 137 km wide crater Neper. Just to the south is the Smythii Basin with its clearly lower floor and shadow-casting bounding rim. Consid- ering that the formation of each basin spreads out continuous blankets of ejecta as wide as the basin itself, all of the area here was buried two and three times with thick layers of ejecta. Each basin deposited debris in the pre-existing ones, so that basins may contain alternating layers of lavas and ejecta.

Chuck Wood

Technical Details
07/16/2011; 00:25 UT. GSO 12" dobs + Fuji camera

Related Links
Rükl plate 38
Image from LPOD Photo Gallery


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