LUNAR PIT CRATERS: A POPULATION STUDY

There exists a type of impact crater called pit craters and debate still revolves around the formational habits of these features on different planetary bodies. Pit craters are defined as an impact crater with a divot (pit) in the central portion of the feature. Populations of these pitted craters have been observed predominantly on Ganymede and Mars; bodies that are considered to have a high concentration of volatiles. It has been suggested that there may be an intrinsic relation between the formation of pit craters and volatiles; however pit craters have been poorly modeled on volatile depleted bodies such as the Moon. This study located and observed pit crater populations on the Moon in an attempt to bridge the information gap between dry bodies and pit craters.

Populations of pit craters were identified on the relatively volatile poor Moon and compared to the total population set. The population study ranged from 20 – 60 km, where the lower end limit represents the transition from simple to complex craters and the higher end limit avoids complications from multi-ringed basins and peak ring structures. In addition to the population comparison, this study characterized the pit crater populations across the lunar surface in both maria and highlands to identify any relation to the lunar terrains. The main tool used to model the pit crater populations was the Lunar Orbital Laser Altimeter (LOLA) data set in conjunction with some visual data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Apollo missions. Ultimately, the results reported here will compare and contrast the lunar pit crater population to those of well-studied bodies such as Ganymede and Mars.