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Published on: February 27, 2021
Evolution of the Rembrandt impact basin on Mercury
Thomas R Watters1, James W Head, Sean C Solomon
1Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA. watterst@si.edu
Abstract:
MESSENGER's second Mercury flyby revealed a ~715-kilometer-diameter impact basin, the second-largest well-preserved basin-scale impact structure known on the planet. The Rembrandt basin is comparable in age to the Caloris basin, is partially flooded by volcanic plains, and displays a unique wheel-and-spoke-like pattern of basin-radial and basin-concentric wrinkle ridges and graben. Stratigraphic relations indicate a multistaged infilling and deformational history involving successive or overlapping phases of contractional and extensional deformation. The youngest deformation of the basin involved the formation of a approximately 1000-kilometer-long lobate scarp, a product of the global cooling and contraction of Mercury.
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