Crater counting

Shield volcano in Tharsis region on Mars with marked borders, circles represent impact craters counted by crater counting method.

Crater counting is a method for estimating the age of a planet's surface. The method is based upon the assumptions that a new surface forms with zero impact craters, and that impact craters accumulate at some constant rate. The method has been calibrated using the ages of samples returned from the Moon.

Crater counting on Mars

The accuracy of age estimates of geologically young surfaces based on crater counting on Mars has been questioned due to formation of large amounts of secondary craters. In one case, the impact that created Zunil crater produced about a hundred secondary craters, some more than 1000 km from the primary impact. If similar impacts also produced comparable amounts of secondaries, it would mean a particular crater-free area of Mars had not been "splattered by a large, infrequent primary crater", as opposed to suffering relatively few small primary impacts since its formation.[1][2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chandler, D (2005-03-28). "Crater count led Mars historians astray". New Scientist. Retrieved 2008-06-07.
  2. ↑ Kerr, R (2006). "Who can Read the Martian Clock?". Science. 312 (5777): 1132–3. doi:10.1126/science.312.5777.1132. PMID 16728612.

Further reading

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