UHM-PRPDC-0102 PR Set: 2019-05 Image Title: On and Around Mons Piton, the Moon Original Source: NASA/GSFC/ASU Image Released: 2019-05-09 Instruments: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Image Number: M190609650LR Mons Piton was one of many peaks in the inner mountain ring of the Imbrium basin. It likely stood as high as five kilometers above the basin floor. Between about 3.7 and 2.5 billion years ago, however, volcanic eruptions gradually filled in the Imbrium basin. Lava submerged most of the mountain ring of which Mons Piton was a part. Mons Piton now stands up to 2.3 kilometers above Mare Imbrium. Other fragments of that lost mountain ring survive: they include Mons Pico, Montes Teneriffe, and Montes Recti, all located west of Mons Piton. Here we see the southern part of Mons Piton, which rises ~2,300 m above the dark volcanic rocks of Mare Imbrium. As in most images of the lunar surface, impact craters large and small pock the landscape. Many are degraded. A steady rain of micrometeoroids chips away at boulders and crater rims, gradually turning fresh craters into nondescript depressions. In addition, shaking caused by impacts and moonquakes gradually fills in craters. Mons Piton has fewer obvious craters than the surrounding plain because mountain slopes tend to be less stable than flat terrain. This means that some crater-erasing degradation processes — specifically, gradual slumping and sudden landslides — are more efficient and thus occur more often than on the plains. .