9 0 obj The three stages of impact crater formation. Look this information up in your lab manual once the mineral has been identified.StreakColor of the mineral when it is powdered.Grind a small amount of a mineral into a powder on a porcelain streak plate and determine the color of the powder.TasteNerve ending reaction in the tongue to different chemicals.Lick the mineral. On relieving of pressure, there is an elastic rebound at the crater floor now hosting a layer of brecciated rocks. Here again, the difference is obvious: In the case of cobble-into-mud or raindrop impacts the craters are not much larger than the projectile (Fig. You will have to calculate an approximate image scale from the height of the peak in the foreground.) In impact research, the subdivision of the crater-forming process into three main stages has generally been accepted. | The term transient crater means the cratering process continues after the excavation flow comes to rest. Which of the four geologic processes might be responsible for the formation of Ius Chasma? Measure and record the width of the Ius Chasma. On a world with an atmosphere, the object is heated by friction with the blanket of air. Such outbursts can be violent enough that once the eruption is . Roter Kamm Crater. (a) Geomorphic map of Reuyl crater. Color is often an indicator of the composition of a rock or mineral and can be effectively used to identify the composition of most igneous rocks. As a result, there are only around 160 known impact craters in existence today (though there are surely more that haven't been discovered). Space shuttle image STS51I-33-56AA, courtesy of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. <>>> 20. 7. What happens if a comet or a very low-density, loosely bound asteroid (like Mathilde asteroid, Fig. Both will react to HCl. Astronomy Gift Shop: http://www.astronomydvd.com/shop.aspx How were the Moon's craters and maria formed? Indeed, impact craters are one of the most common geological landforms on the majority of rocky terrestrial planets, asteroids, and many of the rocky and icy moons of the inner and outer Solar System. More about the doublet crater. More about these experiments can be read on the Chiemgau impact website where a hypervelocity impact video may be downloaded. e. 2) we may think it somehow formed from an identical mechanism. During the final modification phase, the remainder of ejecta partially refills and rings the crater site, and debris forms a rich mineral composite called breccia. 19). Hailstones and even raindrops may produce on harder ground small craters as well (Fig. Some of this tiny debris makes it to Earth's surface and is mixed with soil and ocean sediment. The transition from simple to complex craters occurs at about 1.5 to 4 km (depending on the target rocks) final diameter for terrestrial craters and is much larger (c. 15 km) for craters on the Moon. First, the impactor rushes toward the surface. Moreover, the polar caps contain some water ice. Both are black in color, and is composed of carbon. - Lunar and Planetary Institute Media Policy HVsT{! rought The right side of Figure 12.4 shows a rift zone on Venus. Metamorphic Rock Identification ChartTEXTUREFOLIATIONCOMPOSITIONTYPEPARENT ROCKROCK NAMEFoliatedslatymicaRegionalMudstoneSlatephylliticquartz, mica, chloriteRegionalMudstonePhylliteschistosemica, quartzRegionalSlateSchistschistoseamphibole, plagioclaseRegionalBasalt or GabbroAmphibolitegneissic bandingfeldspar, mica, quartzRegionalSchistGneissNon-FoliatedcarbonContact or RegionalBituminous CoalAnthracite Coalquartz, rock fragmentsContact or RegionalConglomerateMetaconglomeratecalciteContact or RegionalLimestoneMarblequartzContact or RegionalSandstoneQuartzite Mars Surface Introduction In many ways Mars is similar to Earth. Different crystalline structures, or how the atoms and molecules are arranged, result in different minerals. Essentially, the Moon's surface has not been modified since early in its history, so most of its craters are still visible. The dark brown to black color is the most obvious characteristic. The size and shape of the crater and the amount of material excavated depends on factors such as the velocity and mass of the impacting body and the geology of the surface. Mass movement is the displacement of material by landslides or slumping through the action of gravity. We see that shock wave and rarefaction wave propagation are essential in the formation of a meteorite impact crater. However, this is not a sensible practice in a large lab with many different people handling the samples. More elongate craters can be produced if an impactor strikes the surface at a very low angle less than 20 degrees. Earth has weather, water, and plants. Reuyl, an early Hesperian crater, provides evidence for diverse fluvial events; Alluvial fans, channels, orthogonally superposed deposits, fan deposits with incised channels, and large deposits suggest fluvial activity; Two sinuous ridges associated with the alluvial fan on the crater floor are the oldest features of fluvial origin Why does the Moon have so many craters while Earth has so few? <> Coquina is composed almost entirely of shell or fossil fragments. How many objects from space impact Earth each year? On impact of a cosmic body, shock waves start from the contact point and propagate into both the underground target rocks and into the impactor. 1. Meteorite impact spallation: from mega- to micro-scale, The suevite layer outcrop near Fuentes Calientes, Rubielos de la Crida impact basin (Spain), Selection of other publications of interest, New article on the geology of the Iberian System, Understanding the Impact Cratering Process: a Simple Approach, Making impacts: experimental hypervelocity crater generation, Earth Impact Database - Database of Earth Impact Structures - Meteorite Craters, Impact structure and meteorite crater glossary. At some time in their life nearly every girl, boy (and adult) has thrown pebbles or cobbles into mud and watched nice round form. Impact Craters. Simple craters are small bowl-shaped, smooth-walled craters (the maximum size limit depends on the planet). What process do you think formed Reuyl crater (marked B on Figure 5)? These temperatures are enough to more or less completely vaporize the impactor and a volume of the target rocks roughly comparable to the volume of the impactor, resulting in a giant expanding impact vapor plume. But the environmental effects of impact crater formation go far beyond forming benign basins. 16. <> These act together to break apart and wear down the ground. Then, elongated craters may be formed, and the ejecta blanket may considerably deviate from a circular symmetry. Phaneritic texture is composed of crystals that are large enough to see but smaller than pegmatitic texture, and the entire rock is composed of crystals. This process is comparable to the transition from alluvial fan to debris flow-like evidence reported in the Harris crater, . Craters are the most common surface features on many solid planets and moonsMercury and our Moon are covered with craters. 7. 19. Sediment is deposited in a number of environments of deposition, by both moving air and moving water. What happens when an impactor hits? Were still searching for a clue to deduce that.. ExDsD ;;8-E:(] Gosses Bluff (Tnorala) Pingualuit Crater. Halite is common table salt and is most easily identified by taste. d. Maadim Vallis is the channel in the southeast part of the photograph, marked C. Which of the four processes do you think formed Maadim Vallis? These are not visible to the unaided eye. (Viking MDIM Volume 4) 13. I noticed the young crater has an odd shape, non-circular, almost diamond-shaped. Oblong craters can be created by impacts striking the surface at a very low angle. How can craters be used to determine the age of a planet or moon? %PDF-1.5 And so far, the crater formation process has only lasted a few seconds. <> Chapter. Similar to some river systems on Earth, these Martian channels have a branching pattern. The impact-cratering process. Coquina and limestone are both composed of calcite. Planet Earth holds some of the strangest, natural tourist . by lava flows that obscured the older craters. Describe the appearance and orientation of the windstreaks. Computations suggest craters that were formed by a low-density projectile are flatter and have distinctly larger diameter ratios (compared to the above-mentioned one-to-ten ratio of projectile and crater diameter). Fig. Clastic sedimentary rocks contain clasts. <> A central-uplift (central peak) crater (Gow, Canada, 4 km diameter). Marble is composed of calcite and will readily react to a small drop of HCl. Quartz has a hardness of 7 and is very difficult to scratch, even with a good quality knife blade. So far we have considered the impact of a solid object like a stony or iron meteorite. The crater was created instantly when a 50m, 150,000-ton meteor slammed into the desert about 50,000 years ago. Texture will still be used but in a different sense than for igneous rocks. Foliated textures show four types of foliation. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. April 8, 2015. Scientists also think that faster cooling, like when lava is exposed to water, may also help with the formation of these columns. Halite has a hardness of 2.5 and cannot be scratched by a fingernail (unpolished fingernail). Fig. Although the resulting depression may bear some resemblance to the hole that results from throwing a pebble into a sandbox, the . Ds8d9B nNPS,*_y\v`/>wou__]ewPcLkUU$~z-S|lj O/#lr 9]_nc5u$9a4GVKwsaG|4ot6%?F3Xa:K1r=1\Sw Sometimes lots of particles strike at one time, creating meteor showers. endobj Therefore, crisp craters with upraised rims and steep sides are young, while less distinct and eroded craters with partial rims are probably older. Craters can be used to determine the relative ages of Martian surface materials; in general, older surfaces have craters which are more numerous, larger, and more degraded than those on young surfaces. What is the texture of the ejecta flow labeled A? Copernicus is a large crater (93 kilometers or 60 miles wide) on the Moon. The dark basins can be seen by the naked eye. Justify your answer? 15 0 obj A good example is the mineral plagioclase. 2 0 obj 6). Sand is clasts between 1/16 and 2 mm in size, and gravel is greater than 2 mm. This icy bedrock is potentially unstable, and some impact craters may relax or fade away to unrecognition due to water ice's volatility and weak but strongly temperature dependent rheology. Arid climate and a lack of vegetation in the vicinity of Meteor Crater make it an excellent comparison site for similar-sized impact craters on Mars, Ramsey said. Explain their similarities and their differences. Light colors, including white, light gray, tan and pink, indicate a felsic composition. e. Schistose foliation is composed of larger minerals that are visible to the unaided eye. Fig. The composition of clastic sedimentary rocks is divided into three types - clay/silt, sand and gravel. The same geologic processes that shape Earth, i.e., erosion, impact cratering, tectonism, and volcanism, have left their mark on Mars. Fig. endobj Determine and record the diameter of Apollinaris Patera? For instance, the famous Chicxulub crater in Yucatan, Mexico, is thought to be the site of the meteor impact that instigated the K-T event, which wiped out the dinosaurs in a mass extinction that affected much of life on Earth. (Viking MDIM Volume 4) 15. The Measurer should measure from the ground to how high the rock is, and ask the Recorder to write down that height under the heading "Meteor 1, Trial 1". Metaconglomerate is composed of pebbles and gravel that have been flattened due to directed pressure. Craters produced by the collision of a meteorite with the Earth (or another planet or moon) are called impact craters. Note the remarkable difference to the crater-projectile ratio in Fig. Clay and silt are less than 1/256 mm. These definitions and methods are simplified. The impact sprays material ejecta out in all directions. The twoprojectile produced a pair of rimmed simple, bowl-shaped craters quite similar to the dual craters from Fig. Galileo Image (PIA00405), produced by the United States Geological Survey, courtesy of NASA. When first we see images of the famous one-kilometer (0.75-mile) bowl-shaped Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona (Fig. | What happens to the transient crater? Heavy elements began sinking past the oceans and magma toward the center of the planet. Procedures and Lab Questions to be Turned In: Part 1 Olympus Mons is a shield volcano 600 km in diameter, towering 25 km above the surrounding plain. Four minerals that need to be identified are quartz, halite, gypsum and calcite. Apollinaris Patera and surrounding region centered at 10S, 190W. 12 0 obj 13 0 obj Tenoumer Crater. For the following, you will use the knowledge from previous questions to identify Martian landforms and describe the geologic processes that created them. Igneous rocks can be identified by the determination of the composition and texture of the rock. Planetary_Geology was published by lavit shetty on 2021-11-18. Mercury has lots of craters, yet Venus has very few craters, due to its dense atmosphere (containing lots of 'heavy' gases), meaning that many meteorites burn up due to friction in the . Fig. <> Compare Apollinaris Patera (marked A on Figure 5) to Olympus Mons (Figure 1). Much of Earth's surface is recycled through plate tectonic activity (and erosion), so Earth also has few craters. and J.A. How does the mass of the projectile affect the cratering process? Smaller planets have less gravitational "pull" than large planets; impactors will strike at lower speeds. Free essays, homework help, flashcards, research papers, book reports, term papers, history, science, politics Simple Craters . The Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico, is not visible at the surface of the seafloor. Determination of this information is not easily accomplished in this lab. <> Over the course of a few hundred million years, the planet began to cool and oceans of liquid water formed. 13). Image courtesy of V. L. Sharpton through the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Computing these vectors (direction and magnitude) for each point in the subsurface, a field of excavation flow with arcuate trajectories as shown in the sketch above (Fig. Some water probably seeped into the ground and is frozen there today as ice, and some likely escaped into space over time. Melosh, H.J. endobj Its features, such as the ejecta blanket beyond its rim, are well preserved because of the crater's youth; it has not experienced extensive erosion. Look for areas where the light reflects from planar surfaces. endobj Context Image. These are fragments or pieces of rock or minerals. oqoujYm<3, \xu_-^/NiU,*&N ]L$[LDf>q@#SB9o9~-EPs lRj{u/wk\:oD $Ly Describe the breakage as either irregular or conchoidal (has the appearance of broken glass)HardnessResistance to scratching or abrasion.Use minerals of known hardness from the Mohs Hardness Kits. Privacy Policy| "It is difficult to say exactly . Earth and the other planets are constantly bombarded by tiny debris from space, much of which burns up in the atmosphere. One of the most well-known craters on Earth is Meteor Crater, which is near Winslow, Arizona. * Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project This flow field grows with time, and the rock mass flow is directed upwards, sideward and downwards. 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