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Science 1 May 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5927, pp. 618 - 621
DOI: 10.1126/science.1172109
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Reports

Evolution of the Rembrandt Impact Basin on Mercury

Thomas R. Watters,1,* James W. Head,2 Sean C. Solomon,3 Mark S. Robinson,4 Clark R. Chapman,5 Brett W. Denevi,4 Caleb I. Fassett,2 Scott L. Murchie,6 Robert G. Strom7

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 ~1000-kilometer-long lobate scarp, a product of the global cooling and contraction of Mercury.

1 Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
2 Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
3 Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
4 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85251, USA.
5 Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut Street, Boulder, CO 80302, USA.
6 Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.
7 Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: watterst{at}si.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)