- Original Caption Released with Image:
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Numerous examples of craters that have been deformed and shortened by
younger faults have been identified on images returned from MESSENGER’s
first flyby of Mercury. In three cases shown here (arrows), portions of
the floor and rim of a crater were buried when a large block of crust was
thrust over the crater during the formation of a prominent fault scarp or
cliff. By comparing the estimated size and shape of the original,
undeformed crater with the crater’s current geometry, scientists can infer
the amount of movement between the two crustal blocks on either side of
the fault. This figure was recently published in Science magazine. For
each of the three examples of deformed and shortened craters shown here,
movement on the faults buried at least a kilometer of the original crater.
A: 17-kilometer (11-mile) diameter crater (arrows) shortened by Beagle
Rupes. B: 5-kilometer (3-mile) diameter crater deformed near the rim of an
older, larger crater, shown enlarged in the box on the lower left. C:
11-kilometer (7-mile) diameter crater (arrows) shortened by a
northwest-southeast-trending fault scarp.
These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the
first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information
regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State
University/Carnegie Institution of Washington. Figure 3 from Solomon et al., Science, 321, 59-62, 2008.
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