45-2 Impact Crater Morphometry on Mercury's Smooth Plains

Session: Surface Processes Across the Solar System (Posters)

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Abstract:

The goal of our project is to find idealized morphometry parameters for a fresh crater on Mercury, and to develop a model of crater degradation. Previous studies have observed higher diffusive degradation rates on Mercury than other similar airless bodies such as the Moon, and  this study hopes to contribute to the understanding of unique geological processes on Mercury that may be the cause for this rapid degradation. A secondary goal that developed along the course of the project is looking for a way to distinguish secondary craters from primary craters.

Using ArcMap, we georeferenced low resolution orthoimages  for 11 image sets containing swaths of continuous images obtained from the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) camera on the NASA MESSENGER spacecraft, plotting 3 to 4 georeferenced points at the center of clear craters for each image to properly align them to the global MDIS basemap. Next we uploaded the corresponding high resolution digital elevation models (DEM) and orthoimages for each image set into ArcMap, and applied the georeferencing to each of the images, altering the opacity and the color scale of the DEMs to increase the visibility of the craters. We then mapped all of the craters with diameters greater than 0.8km, using the CraterTools addon, utilizing both the DEM and orthoimages to improve accuracy. We then extracted the topographical data around each of the craters by creating square extraction bounds centered on each crater with side lengths twice their radius. Then we assigned each of the craters to a single DEM that contained the majority of the crater, and used GDAL to extract the topography in each DEM according to the bounds of the selected squares, giving us the latitude, longitude, and elevation of each point. 

Our next steps consist of analyzing this extracted data by finding the average radii for concentric elevation values, normalizing them using ratios of distance from the crater rim, averaging these values across all of the craters, and fitting this idealized model to individual craters. We hope to find cutoff criteria for what constitutes a fresh crater on Mercury, as well as any patterns consistent with secondary cratering characteristics in the low depth/diameter range which may help us identify secondary craters.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 2, 2026

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