Europlanet Science Congress 2021
Virtual meeting
13 – 24 September 2021
Europlanet Science Congress 2021
Virtual meeting
13 September – 24 September 2021
EPSC Abstracts
Vol. 15, EPSC2021-743, 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2021-743
Europlanet Science Congress 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Global Mapping and Analysis of the Structural Features in the Northern Smooth Plains of Mercury

marco cardinale1, Gaetano Di Achille1, and David A.Vaz2
marco cardinale et al.
  • 1Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astronomico d'Abruzzo, Italy (marco.cardinale@inaf.it)
  • 2Centre for Earth and Space Research of the University of Coimbra, Observatório Geofísico e Astronómico da Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.

Orbital data from the Messenger spacecraft (1) reveal that part of the Mercury surface is covered by smooth plains, which are interpreted to be flood volcanic material across the planetary surface (2). In this work, we present a detailed geo-structural map of the northern smooth plains between  latitudes 29°N and 65°N. Our 1:100.000-scale map is obtained semi-automatically, using an algorithm to map all scarps from a DEM (3,4) followed by visual inspection and classification in ArcGIS. We created a DEM  using the raw MLA (Mercury Laser Altimeter) data (1) ,with 500 m/pix, and we used the Mercury Messenger MDIS (Mercury Dual Imaging System) (1,2) base map with 166m per pixel for the classification stage. With this approach, we mapped and characterized 51664 features on Mercury, creating a database with several morphometric attributes (e.g. length, azimuth, scarp height) which we will use to study the tectonic evolution of the smooth plains. 

In this way, we classified wrinkle ridges’s scarps, ghost craters, rim craters and central peaks. The morphometric parameters of the wrinkle ridges will  be quantitatively analyzed, in order to characterizer the possible tectonic process that could have formed them.

This map can be considered an enhancement for the north pole of the global geological map of Mercury (1, 5).

 

References

  • Hawkins, S. E., III, et al. (2007), The Mercury Dual Imaging System on the MESSENGER spacecraft, Space Sci. Rev., 131, 247–338.. 
  • Denevi, B. W., et al. (2013), The distribution and origin of smooth plains on Mercury, J. Geophys. Res. Planets, 118, 891–907, doi:10.1002/jgre.20075.
  • Alegre Vaz, D. (2011). Analysis of a Thaumasia Planum rift through automatic mapping and strain characterization of normal faults. Planetary and Space Science, 59(11-12), 1210–1221. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2010.07.008 .
  • Vaz, D. A., Spagnuolo, M. G., & Silvestro, S. (2014). Morphometric and geometric characterization of normal faults on Mars. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 401, 83–94. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2014.05.022.
  • Kinczyk, M. J., Prockter, L., Byrne, P., Denevi, B., Buczkowski, D., Ostrach, L., & Miller, E. (2019, September). The First Global Geological Map of Mercury. In EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 (Vol. 2019, pp. EPSC-DPS2019).

How to cite: cardinale, M., Di Achille, G., and A.Vaz, D.: Global Mapping and Analysis of the Structural Features in the Northern Smooth Plains of Mercury, Europlanet Science Congress 2021, online, 13–24 Sep 2021, EPSC2021-743, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2021-743, 2021.