Abstract
The craters on the lunar surface represent unique morphological and mineralogical characteristics. Cardanus (13.2°N; 72.4°W) and Krafft craters (16.6°N; 72.6°W) present in the equatorial transition region of the Moon represents distinctive features. The morphology of crater is studied using high-resolution data of Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) and Wide Angle Camera (WAC) onboard Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Both the craters exhibit unique features like irregular central mound features, ejecta deposition in the outer rim and terraced feature in the inner rim of both the craters. The craters have fractured features with different source of origin. Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) data is used to generate the profile graph of crater floor and measurement of morphometric features such as elevation of central mound, floor depth, and crater rim to floor height. Further, mineralogical study is carried out using Chandrayaan-1 Moon mineralogy mapper (M3) and Clementine multispectral dataset in which certain minerals such as mafic and anorthosites are found. The integrated band depth technique is calculated using M3 datasets for the estimation of certain mafic minerals. It is concluded that the Cardanus surface is rich in pyroxene and feldspathic minerals, while the Krafft crater surface has the presence of clinopyroxene–olivine mixture. The study reveals the unique morphology and mineralogy of both the crater belonging to same geological age, i.e., Late Imbrium Period.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been carried out under Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sponsored Chandrayaan-1 project with department sanction number B.19013/31/2016-sec. 2. The authors are thankful to the Project Coordinator, Dr R Phani Rajasekhar, for providing training for data analysis.
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Saumitra Mukherjee came up with the idea of detailed crater study and worked in the morphological interpretation within craters. Nidhi Roy collected the data, established the methodology and prepared the images, table and manuscript. Priyadarshini Singh and Deepali Singh reviewed the paper and made necessary corrections in the original manuscript.
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Communicated by Arkoprovo Biswas
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Mukherjee, S., Roy, N., Singh, P. et al. Characterisation of surface topography and mineralogy of Cardanus and Krafft craters in the western Procellarum region of Moon. J Earth Syst Sci 131, 181 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01928-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01928-8