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Intercrater Plains

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Definition

Plains on Mercury and other bodies that show fewer craters than the oldest terrains on the planet (heavily cratered terrain) but which are more cratered (and so are older) than smooth plains

Note

Intercrater plains are a terrain mapping unit on Mercury. Any plains units between craters could be also called as intercrater plains on Mars (Kadish et al. 2009; Murchie et al. 2009; Wray et al. 2011) or the Moon (Leake 1982; Hartmann 1995) as a purely descriptive term.

Description

Intercrater plains on Mercury (Fig. 1) form a nearly level or rolling surfaces covering about 40 % of the planet. Intercrater plains resemble smooth plains in color and reflectance and probably have broadly similar composition (Denevi et al. 2009). Preliminary X-ray fluorescence data from MESSENGER show a higher Mg/Si ratio for intercrater plains than for smooth plains and considerably higher than for terrestrial or lunar lavas (Weider et al. 2012). The high Mg/Si and low Fe/Si ratios (Nittler et al. 2011...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    David A. Rothery

  2. Konkoly Thege Miklos Astronomical Institute, Research Center for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Ákos Kereszturi

Authors
  1. David A. Rothery
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  2. Ákos Kereszturi
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Correspondence to David A. Rothery .

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Rothery, D.A., Kereszturi, Á. (2014). Intercrater Plains. In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_197-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_197-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9213-9

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