Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

Living Edition

Ringed Peak-Cluster Basin

Living reference work entry
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_428-1
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Definition

Complex impact crater that has a central ring of peaks.

A type of complex crater

Description

Ringed peak-cluster basins are a subset of complex craters. Ringed peak-cluster basins, like peak-ring basins, have a single interior ring of peaks without a central peak. They overlap in rim-crest diameter with protobasins and also occur at diameters well below the transition to peak-ring basins (Baker et al. 2011b). They differ from peak-ring basins in that the diameter of their peak rings relative to their rim-crest diameter is smaller.

Classifying them as a separate type is supported by the observation that ringed peak-cluster basins diverge from the continuous trend of ring/rim-crest ratios shared by protobasins and peak-ring basins (Baker et al. 2011b).

Morphometry

The ring/rim-crest ratios are around 0.2 on Mercury as compared to ~0.4 for protobasins and ~0.5 for peak-ring basins. The diameters of ringed peak-cluster basins range between 73 and 133 km on Mercury (Baker et al. 2011b...

Keywords

Geographical Information Peak Ring Specific Transition Central Peak Central Ring 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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References

  1. Baker DMH, Head JW, Schon SC, Ernst CM, Prockter LM, Murchie SL, Denevi BW, Solomon SC, Strom RG (2011a) The transition from complex crater to peak-ring basin on Mercury: new observations from MESSENGER flyby data and constraints on basin formation models. Planet Space Sci 59:15. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2011.05.010, 1932–1948Google Scholar
  2. Baker DMH, Head JW, Fassett CI, Kadish SJ, Smith DE, Zuber MT, Neumann GA (2011b) The transition from complex crater to peak-ring basin on the Moon: new observations from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument. Icarus 214:377–393CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Schon SC, Head JW, Baker DMH, Prockter LM, Ernst CM, Solomon SC (2011) Eminescu impact structure: insight into the transition from complex crater to peak-ring basin on Mercury. Planet Space Sci. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2011.02.003, in pressGoogle Scholar
  4. Wood CA, Tam W (1993) Morphologic classes of impact basins on Venus. Lunar Planet Sci Conf XXIV:1535–1536, HoustonGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Planetary Science Research GroupEötvös Loránd University, Institute of Geography and Earth SciencesBudapestHungary