Base Surge Deposits Research Articles

Bed Forms in Base-Surge Deposits: Lunar Implications

Bed Forms in Base-Surge Deposits: Lunar Implications

Bed Forms in Base-Surge Deposits: Lunar Implications

Undulating dunelike deposits of surface debris, widespread over parts of the lunar landscape, are similar in form but greater in size than base-surge deposits found in many maar volcanoes and tuff rings on Earth. The bed forms of base-surge deposits develop by the interaction of the bed materials with those in the current passing overhead. Therefore the "patterned ground" produced differs from that formed by ballistic fallout.

Cometary impact origin of Copernicus

Copernicus, one of the most studied craters on the lunar surface, has been considered as having been formed by hypervelocity explosion impact of a meteorite. After studying Copernicus and Meteor Crater, Arizona, with the aid of pertinent earth-bound cratering data, it is concluded that Copernicus could not have been formed by impact of a meteorite. A new hypothesis is suggested that Copernicus was formed by surface explosion of an icy cometary head on a layer of poorly consolidated rubble ejecta interbedded with base surge deposits overlying hard rock lunar crust.