The impact origin and evolution of Chryse Planitia on Mars revealed by buried craters.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31534129.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12162-0 and PMC identifier 6751168.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Large impacts are one of the most important processes shaping a planet's surface. On Mars, the early formation of the Martian crust and the lack of large impact basins (only four unambiguously identified: Hellas, Argyre, Utopia, and Isidis) indicates that a large part of early records of Mars' impact history is missing. Here we show, in Chryse Planitia, the scarcity of buried impact craters in a near-circular area could be explained by a pre-existing topographic depression with more intense resurfacing. Spatially correlated with positive Bouguer anomaly, this near-circular region with a diameter of ~1090 km likely originated from an impact. This proposed large impact basin must have been quickly relaxed or buried after its formation more than 4.0 billion years ago and heavily modified by subsequent resurfacing events. We anticipate our study to open a new window to unravelling the buried records of early Martian bombardment record.