Geomorphology of

Moon and Mars

In our solar system, there are two distinct kinds of planets. Near the Sun, i.e.
the “inner” solar system, are planets like Earth - relatively small, rocky, high-
density. These are called the terrestrial planets and include Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars, and (although it isn’t really a planet) Earth’s Moon.
Farther out from the Sun, in the “outer” solar system, are huge worlds made
primarily of hydrogen and helium. We call them “gas giants,” or Jovian
planets, and they are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In orbits
between Mars and Jupiter, in what is called the asteroid belt.
Many planetary bodies, such as the Earth's moon, retain
landscape features formed very early in their history.

Earth alone among the planets and moons of the Solar

System came to develop its apparently uniquely complex
surface form.
• The mean distance of the Sun influences the
amount of solar energy available at the surface.
• This together with the rotational period and the
nature of the atmosphere largely controls the
average and extreme temperatures experienced
on planetary surfaces.
• Atmospheric pressure and temperature are two
crucial variables which determine whether water
can exist in its liquid state on a planet's surface,
and consequently they determine the nature of
chemical and physical weathering and the
presence or absence of fluvial activity.
Thus Earth is unique in a sense that it
has:
• Atmosphere, higher Gravity, Rotation,
Water, Plate tectonics.
• Operative Endogenic and Exogenic
processes.
• Geomorphology has evolved due to
Weathering, Geological work of Rivers,
Glaciers, Wind, Oceans, Mass movements
etc.
•Knowledge of the broad outlines of the Moon's
surface features extends back to the time when
human beings first looked heavenwards.

•Contrasts between light and dark areas are clearly

visible with the naked eye and, following the
observations by telescope pioneered by Galileo and
others.

•The Moon keeps the same hemisphere towards

Earth because Earth’s gravity has locked in the
Moon’s rotation.
THE LUNAR LANDSCAPE
• The Moon is not like Earth. It does not have
oceans, lakes, rivers, or streams. It does not
have wind-blown ice fields at its poles.
• It has Highlands and lowlands
• The major features of the Moon’s surface can
be seen by just looking up at it. It has lighter
and darker areas. These distinctive terrains are
the bright lunar highlands (also known as the
lunar terrae, which is Latin for “land”) and the
darker plains called the lunar maria, Latin for
“seas,”
• Lunar maria (singular mare) are large, dark, regions
of the Moon. They do not contain any water, but are
believed to have been formed from molten rock from
the Moon's mantle coming out onto the surface of the
Moon.
• These are large, dark, basaltic plains on Moon, formed
by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were
dubbed maria, by early astronomers who mistook
them for actual seas.
• The surface of the Moon has many features, including
Mountains and valleys, Craters, and Maria
• They are less reflective than the "highlands" as a
result of their iron-rich composition.
• Terrae = Land
• Maria = Sea
• Two major processes have fashioned the lunar
landscape.
• One is Impact cratering, which involves the
transformation of the kinetic energy of an impacting
object, or bolide, and the consequent formation of impact
craters and associated features. Bolides can include
comets as well as meteorites.
• The second significant process is Volcanic flooding.
The Maria are plains formed by extensive sheets of
basaltic lava, erupted mainly between 3.9 and 3.1 Ga BP.
• Some 17 per cent of the surface is covered by lava plains,
but by far the greater proportion of these occur on the
near side of the Moon.
• Essentially all of these craters formed when
meteorites crashed into the Moon.
• Before either robotic or piloted spacecraft
went to the Moon, many scientists thought
that most lunar craters were volcanic in
origin.
• But as we found out more about the nature of
lunar craters and studied impact craters on
Earth, it became clear that the Moon has been
bombarded by cosmic projectiles.
Volcanism and Tectonics
• Although now quiescent, volcanic activity has been
active on the Moon in the past.
• Most was associated with the formation of large impact
basins, all of which were created early in lunar history.
• The Orientale Basin is the most recent and this was
formed about 3.9 Ga BP. Puncturing of the early-
formed crust by large bolides exposed the partially
molten interior and led to the eruption of lava flows
which proceeded to fill the basins.
• Eruption of basalts appears to have continued for a
considerable period after basin formation.
The near side
has many
craters, but it
is generally
smoother than
the far side.

There are
large smooth
basins as well
as craters on
the near side.
The far side of
the moon is
much more
pock marked by
small craters
and it has a
more irregular,
a rougher
surface on
average than
the side that
faces the Earth.
• These craters are also a testament to the
bombardment that our own planet, Earth, has
suffered.
• The Earth-Moon system occupies the same part of
our solar system, so the Earth was the target of the
same swarm of colliding debris that hit the Moon.
• On Earth, however, we have Atmosphere in
which most of the meteorites burn out. This
along with other geologic processes constantly
destroy clues about this impact history.
• Mountain building processes, plate subduction,
erosion, volcanism, and other processes cover or
consume impact craters.
So the record on Earth, limited to ~160 impact craters,
is only the surviving trace of the millions of impact
cratering events that have affected our planet.

Ramgarh Crater, Rajasthan

• In addition to impact craters, one can look at the
moon and see that it is composed of light-colored
and darker-colored material.
• The light-colored material is in areas of the Moon
called the highlands, which represent the earliest
crust on the Moon.
• Impact cratering shattered this crust and often
deformed it, pushing some of it into mountain-high
impact crater rims or ejecting it across the surface
of the Moon.
• This early crust of the Moon was dominated by a
type of rock called anorthosite, which is dominated
by the white mineral anorthite or plagioclase.
• The impact process is
explosive.
• When it hits, it is
moving extremely
fast, more than 20
km/sec (70,000
km/hour)
• The target material is
compressed strongly,
then decompressed. A The bottom of the crater is lower than
mass of about 10,000 the original ground surface, the piled up
times the mass of the material on the rim is higher.
impactor is tossed out Objects impacting at a variety of
velocities (hence kinetic energies)
of the target area,
produce craters with a variety of sizes;
piling up around the
the more energy, the larger the crater
hole so produced.
Maps of the near side and far side of the Moon showing the major
geological and morphological provinces. The location of the landing
sites for Apollo missions 14-17 are also indicated.
• The Moon has experienced a history of bombardment
extending back to its formation 4.6 Ga BP. Craters formed
by bolide impacts range from microscopic forms up to
huge circular basins, which have subsequently been
flooded by lava.
• A small number of craters of probable non-impact origin
have also been identified on the Moon and are thought to
be associated with volcanic activity.
• Impacts occur at tremendous velocities of up to 150, 000
km per hour . The instantaneous conversion of the
enormous quantities of kinetic energy released into heat as
the object penetrates the surface, explodes and vaporizes
means that small objects can produce surprisingly large
craters.
• At the simplest level, lunar craters can be classified
according to their size and characteristic morphology into
following categories.
• Microcraters (« 10 mm in diameter) are found on rocks
and boulders, and bombardment by very small meteorites is
probably important in fracturing rocks and producing the
fine-grained lunar regolith.
• Small craters (10 mm to 15 km across) have a simple form
lacking major structural features, whereas
• Large craters (15 to 300 km across) are complex features
and typically show evidence of modification by molten
rock, either related to the original impact or associated with
subsequent volcanic activity.
• Some contain one or more central peaks probably formed
through the rebound of the crater floor after impact
Euler is a lunar impact
crater named after the Swiss
mathematician, physician and
astronomer Leonhard Euler. A
central peak can be seen in
the centre of the crater,
probably formed as a result of
rebound of the crater floor
after impact

In craters more than about 120

km across, a series of rings
formed by uplifted masses of
rock tends to replace the central
peak. In very large craters (>
300 km across), usually termed
basins, up to five rings may be
found.
The Montes Apennines, which reach some 5 km above the
lunar surface, in fact represent part of the outermost ring of
the vast Imbrium Basin
• While the craters, highlands and maria are
the moon's three main landforms, the moon's
surface has a number of other highly visible
features.
• For example, some impact craters have bright
rays that shoot outward from the center. Also,
the moon has a number of rilles, which are
long, thin tunnels or trenches.
A central peak can be
seen in the centre of
crater (Crater Euler),
probably formed as a
result of rebound of the
crater floor after impact.
The bright bands that can
be seen radiating away
from the crater
(particularly towards the
top left) are known as
crater rays.
These are composed of fine material ejected on impact,
including highly reflective fused silica (glass).
The maria
• The maria cover 16% of the lunar surface and are
composed of lava flows that filled relatively low
places, mostly inside immense impact basins. So,
although the Moon does not have many volcanic
craters, it did experience volcanic activity.
• Close examination of the relationships between the
highlands and the maria shows that this activity took
place after the highlands formed and after most of
the cratering took place. Thus, the maria are
younger than the highlands. The maria fill many of
the gigantic impact basins that decorate the Moon’s
nearside.
• The surface of the Moon has many features,
including mountains and valleys, craters,
and maria—wide flat areas that look like seas
from a distance but are probably solidified molten
rock. Some of these features are listed.
• Lunar maria (singular mare) are large, dark,
regions of the Moon. They do not contain any
water, but are believed to have been formed from
molten rock from the Moon's mantle coming out
onto the surface of the Moon. This list also
includes the one oceanus and the features known
by the names lacus, palus and sinus
During the Apollo 15
mission to Hadley Rille, a
sinuous channel cutting
across the Mare Imbrium,
individual lava flows up to
60 m thick were observed.

The Hadley Rille itself is

thought to be a massive
collapsed lava tunnel,
smaller versions of which
are known from lava
fields on Earth
One of the most
intriguing objects
on the surface of
the Moon are the
“rolling stones”,
also known as
lunar rockfalls or
rolling boulders.
These boulders are abundant all over the Moon and
have sizes that range from a couple of meters to
several 10s of meters. Lunar boulders are believed to
be displaced by moonquakes or impacts and can carve
tracks with lengths that range from a couple of meters
to several kilometers.
• Although many questions remain, we now
have a fairly clear idea of the processes that
have shaped the lunar surface and an
approximate chronology for its development,
based on the radiometric dating of rock
samples returned to Earth.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_fe
atures#Craters
• Mars is sometimes called the Red Planet. ...
Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps,
volcanoes, canyons, and weather.
• It has a very thin atmosphere made of carbon
dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. There are signs
of ancient floods on Mars, but now water
mostly exists in icy dirt and thin clouds.
• Mars' surface is largely covered with basalt, a
volcanic rock covering much of Earth's surface
as well. Earth has large amounts of granite in
its crust, which Mars appears to lack.
• While only about 120 impact craters have been
identified on Earth, scientists estimate that on
the surface of Mars, there are more than
43,000 impact craters with diameters greater
than 5 kilometers (3 miles), and probably over
a quarter of a million impact craters that are
similar in size to Meteor Crater
While only limited craters have been identified on Earth,
scientists estimate that on the surface of Mars, there are more
than 43,000 impact craters with diameters greater than 5 km,
and probably over a quarter of a million smaller impact
craters.
• This image shows the
topography of two of the
hemispheres of Mars, Science
May,1999.
• The most prominent features
in this image are:
• 1) The massive Hellas impact
basin (upper-left) in the
Southern Hemisphere which
is nearly six miles (nine
kilometres) deep and 1,300
miles (2,100 kilometres)
across. 2) The lower-right
image shows the Tharsis
province that contains Tharsis
Montes (Ascraeus, Pavonis,
and Arsia), and the Valles
Marineris canyon system and
related outflow channels.
The elevation range is 29 km, compared with about 20 km on
Earth—i.e., from the bottom of the Mariana Trench to the top of
Mount Everest.
Its surface is rocky, with canyons, volcanoes, dry lake beds
and craters all over it. Red dust covers most of its surface. Mars
has clouds and wind just like Earth. Sometimes the wind blows
the red dust into a dust storm.
• Like Earth and Venus, Mars has mountains, valleys,
and volcanoes, but the red planet's are by far the
biggest and most dramatic. Olympus Mons, the solar
system's largest volcano, towers some 16 miles above
the Martian surface, making it three times taller than
Everest.

The common surface features of Mars include dark

slope streaks, dust devil tracks, sand dunes, Medusae
Fossae Formation, fretted terrain, layers, gullies,
glaciers, scalloped topography, chaos terrain, possible
ancient rivers, pedestal craters, brain terrain, and ring
mold craters.
Mars: Regolith