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

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

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• 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.
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• 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).