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Science 19 July 1968:
Vol. 161. no. 3838, pp. 266 - 269
DOI: 10.1126/science.161.3838.266
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Articles

Lunar Rivers

Richard E. Lingenfelter 1, Stanton J. Peale 1, and Gerald Schubert 1

1 Institute of Geophysics and Department of Planetary and Space Science, University of California, Los Angeles

Mature meanders in lunar sinuous rills strongly suggests that the rills are features of surface erosion by water. Such erosion could occur under a pressurizing ice cover in the absence of a lunar atmosphere. Water, outgassed from the lunar interior and trapped beneath a layer of permafrost, could be released by a meteoritic impact and overflow the crater to form an ice-covered river. A sinuous rill could be eroded in about 100 years.


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