on Lunar Multiring Basins and the

• Main Author: Mark A. Wieczorek
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Aitken; Sion; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.568.5851; http://www.ipgp.fr/~wieczor/MyPapers/Wieczorek_and_Phillips_1999.pdf

Numerous studies of the lunar gravity field have concluded that the lunar Moho is substantially uplifted beneath the young mul-tiring basins. This uplift is presumably due to the excavation of large quantities of crustal material during the cratering process and subsequent rebound of the impact basin floor. Using a new dual-layered crustal thickness model of the Moon, the excavation cavities of some nearside multiring basins (Grimaldi and larger, and younger than Tranquillitatis) were reconstructed by restoring the uplifted Moho to its preimpact location. The farside South Pole– Aitken (SPA) basin was also considered due to its importance in deciphering lunar evolution. Restoring the Moho to its preimpact position beneath these basins resulted in a roughly parabolic depres-sion from which the depth and diameter of the excavation cavity could be determined. Using these reconstructed excavation cavities, the basin-forming process was investigated. Excavation cavity di-