Modeling and Mapping of the Structural Deformation of Large Impact Craters on the Moon and Mercury
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MODELING AND MAPPING OF THE STRUCTURAL DEFORMATION OF LARGE IMPACT CRATERS ON THE MOON AND MERCURY by JEFFREY A. BALCERSKI Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY August, 2015 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of Jeffrey A. Balcerski candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Committee Chair Steven A. Hauck, II James A. Van Orman Ralph P. Harvey Xiong Yu June 1, 2015 *we also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein ~ i ~ Dedicated to Marie, for her love, strength, and faith ~ ii ~ Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................1 2. Tilted Crater Floors as Records of Mercury’s Surface Deformation .....................4 2.1 Introduction ..............................................................................................5 2.2 Craters and Global Tilt Meters ................................................................8 2.3 Measurement Process...............................................................................12 2.3.1 Visual Pre-selection of Candidate Craters ................................13 2.3.2 Inspection and Inclusion/Exclusion of Altimetric Profiles .......14 2.3.3 Trend Fitting of Crater Floor Topography ................................16 2.4 Northern Hemisphere Crater Tilts ...........................................................20 2.5 Comparison of Crater Floor Tilts with Long-Wavelength Topography ..26 2.6 Regional Analysis ....................................................................................31 2.6.1 Caloris Basin .............................................................................31 2.6.2 Northern Rise ............................................................................35 2.7 Discussion ................................................................................................37 2.8 Summary and Conclusion ........................................................................40 2.9 Appendix ..................................................................................................44 2.10 References ..............................................................................................62 3. Evolution of Lunar Basin Subsurface Topography ...............................................67 3.1 Impact Basins as Windows to Lunar Thermal History ............................67 3.2 Measurement Process...............................................................................72 3.3 Measurement Results ...............................................................................74 3.4 Discussion of Central Uplift Measurements ............................................76 3.5 Modeling of Basin Structural Evolution ..................................................79 3.6 Model Results ..........................................................................................85 ~ iii ~ 3.7 Discussion of Model Results ...................................................................89 3.8 Summary and Conclusions ......................................................................90 3.9 Appendix ..................................................................................................93 3.10 References ..............................................................................................94 List of Tables 2.A.1 Plane-fit Crater Floors Slopes In and Near Caloris Basin ...............................45 2.A.2 Plane-fit Crater Floor Slopes of the Northern Rise ..........................................45 2.A.3 Along-track Unique Crater Slope Measurements ............................................46 3.1 Model Material Parameters ..................................................................................84 3.2 Model Topographic Parameters ...........................................................................85 3.A.1 Morphology of Measureable Lunar Basins ......................................................92 ~ iv ~ List of Figures 2.1 Topography of Mercury’s Northern Hemisphere ................................................8 2.2 Crater Floor Tilting Process .................................................................................12 2.3 Measurement Criteria of Example Crater ............................................................16 2.4 Crater Morphological Types ................................................................................20 2.5 Distribution of Morphologic Types of Cataloged Craters ...................................21 2.6 Location Map of All Measured MLA Profiles ....................................................22 2.7 Histogram of Track Lengths of Crater Floor Profiles ..........................................23 2.8 Histogram of the Direction and Magnitude of Crater Floor Profiles ...................24 2.9 Histogram of Randomly Sampled Surface Tilts ..................................................26 2.10 Measured Floor Tilts versus Spherical Harmonic Model ..................................27 2.11 Misfit Analysis ...................................................................................................29 2.12 Co-directional versus Anti-directional Tilts ......................................................31 2.13 Plane-fit Tilt Measurements in Caloris Basin ....................................................34 2.14 Plane-track Tilt Measurements of the Northern Rise ........................................36 2.15 Crater Rim Tilt Influenced by Pre-existing Topography ...................................42 2.A.1 Tilt Selection Flowchart ...................................................................................44 3.1 Lunar Gravity Anomalies ....................................................................................71 3.2 Comparative Topography of Humboldtianum and Nubium ................................72 3.3 Topographic Measurement Criteria .....................................................................73 3.4.A Uplift Magnitude versus Basin Diameter .........................................................75 3.4.B Uplift Width versus Basin Diameter ................................................................75 3.4.C Uplift Width Fraction versus Basin Diameter ..................................................76 3.4.D Uplift Width Fraction versus Crustal Thickness ..............................................76 3.5 Comparative Topography of Basins in Similar Thermal Environments .............78 ~ v ~ 3.6 Model Schematic and Boundary Conditions .......................................................81 3.7.A Initial Thermal State for Model Cases .............................................................83 3.7.B Initial Viscosity Structure for Model Cases .....................................................83 3.8 Maximum Lateral Displacement of Model Cases ...............................................86 3.9 Topographic Evolution of Model Case 3 .............................................................87 3.10 Initial and Evolved Stresses Due to Topographic Deformation ........................88 ~ vi ~ Acknowledgements First and foremost, this work is dedicated to my wife and family. This has been a collaborative journey in every sense, and there is no doubt that none of would be possible with their support. They have provided the encouragement and motivation to take on each day, and to go beyond my own limitations and ego. I also owe an incredible debt to my parents, who have been present through all of my success and failures and have continued to provide their unwavering support. Thank you both for your seemingly limitless love and faith. My gratitude also to my faculty advisors, who saw potential in me, had the confidence that I could succeed, and gave me the opportunity and means to do so. Much credit is due to my advisor, Steven Hauck, for challenging me, encouraging me, and providing access to the planetary science community that I could not have imagined. ~ vii ~ Modeling and Mapping of the Structural Deformation of Large Impact Craters on the Moon and Mercury Abstract by JEFFREY A. BALCERSKI The large craters and impact basins that are present on nearly every solid body in the solar system are remnants of a cataclysmic process that excavated, melted, vaporized, and ejected tremendous amounts of material from the surface of the planets. The results of this process of energy release and topographic disruption can be used to derive information about the deep geologic past of the planets. On Mercury, the topography of the melted sheet which forms interior floors of craters > 12 km in diameter, is well preserved and can be measured using the altimetric data from the MESSENGER orbital mission. I use these measurements to place chronologic constraints on the onset and duration of some of Mercury’s large-scale topographic features. On the Moon, the events that formed impact craters measuring over 120 km in diameter were capable of disrupting the crust-mantle boundary. Many of those perturbations have persisted through the billions of years since their formation. The processes that preserve this remarkable topography and the way in which it deforms over time, are poorly constrained due to the lack of observation of geologically recent basin formation events. However, constraints