The South Pole‐Aitken Basin: Constraints on Impact Excavation, Melt, and Ejecta
Name
Geophysical Research Letters - 2024 - Citron - The South Pole‐Aitken Basin Constraints on Impact Excavation Melt and.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.48 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
627a9f33750dac87e86df56424b8197e
Author(s)
Citron, RI
Smith, DE
Stewart, ST
Hood, LL
Zuber, MT
Date Issued
July 22, 2024
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Citron, R. I., Smith, D. E., Stewart, S. T., Hood, L. L., & Zuber, M. T. (2024). The South Pole-Aitken basin: Constraints on impact excavation, melt, and ejecta. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2024GL110034.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The formation and evolution of the South Pole‐Aitken (SPA) basin is critical to relating large impact basin formation and modification to lunar geophysical evolution. Most prior models of the SPA impact were conducted in 2D, making it difficult to compare model output to the 3D crustal structure and ejecta distribution. In order to better constrain the parameters of the SPA impactor and the expected post impact distribution of crust and ejecta, we conducted numerical simulations of the SPA impact in 3D. We tested a wide range of impact parameters and constrained model results with recent geophysical data. We found the crustal structure of the SPA basin is best fit by an oblique impact (30–45°) of a 350–400 km diameter projectile impacting at 12–16 km/s. The impact excavated material from as deep as 80–120 km, and ejecta was deposited in a butterfly pattern with a forbidden region uprange of the impact.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1029/2024gl110034
