Impact Cratering Across the Solar System

1st Edition, Volume 3 - June 1, 2029
Editors: Gordon R. Osinski, Catherine D. Neish
Language: English
Paperback ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 3 2 3 - 8 9 9 6 2 - 8
eBook ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 3 2 3 - 9 1 5 7 4 - 8

Impact Cratering Across the Solar System, Volume Three provides an up-to-date, accessible and comprehensive discussions on the impact landforms and processes that shape and drive… Read more

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Impact Cratering Across the Solar System, Volume Three provides an up-to-date, accessible and comprehensive discussions on the impact landforms and processes that shape and drive the evolution of planets, moons and smaller bodies. This book is a necessary resource for sourcing reliable and thorough information on how impact cratering manifests throughout the solar system. The book covers pressing topics, such as how an impact event may be responsible for the major crustal dichotomy on Mars, how impact melting may have created the oldest known rocks on Earth, or how impact craters can be used to date planetary surfaces throughout the Solar System.

This new release places a singular emphasis on comparing impact cratering processes on all relevant solar system bodies, with an explicit objective of providing a systems-level understanding of this widespread phenomenon. This book is ideal for students, academics and researchers in the fields of planetary science, geology, and astronomy, as well as those who study planetary impacts such as geophysicists, seismologists and structural geologists.

1 Overview of the Impact Cratering Processs
Introduction to this volume
Rationale
Relevance and role within the book series
Overview of chapters
Overview of the impact cratering process
Contact and compression stage
Excavation stage
Modification stage
Hydrothermal stage and other post-impact effects/products such as crater lakes
Overview of the products and effects of impact cratering
Approaches to study impact craters
Field studies
Remote sensing
Experiments
Numerical modeling

2 Crater morphology and morphometry
Introduction
General observations across the Solar System
Simple craters
Transitional craters
Complex craters (central pit and central peak)
Peak-ring basins
Multi-ring basins
Role of gravity and target properties (e.g., layering, ice, temperature, etc) in controlling crater morphology and morphometry

3 Impact ejecta deposits
Introduction
General observations across the Solar System
Generation of continuous ejecta blankets and changes in morphology due to target properties (e.g., fluidized ejecta craters)
Emplacement of multiple layered ejecta deposits
Distal ejecta
Formation of crater rays and secondary crater fields

4 Effects of impacts on target geology
Introduction
Fracturing, brecciation, and increase in porosity of target rocks
Shock metamorphism
Uplift

5 Impactites – The products of impact
Introduction
Lithic breccias
Melt-bearing breccias
Impact melt rocks
Distribution and setting within and around craters
Effect of target lithology on impactite generation
Impact-generated hydrothermal alteration of impactites

6 Impacts into atmospheres
Introduction
The effect of impacts on atmospheres (e.g., impacts into Jovian planets, atmospheric loss & gain)
The effect of atmospheres on impactors (e.g., atmospheric break-up of projectiles)
The effect of atmospheres on ejecta (e.g., ejecta emplacement, vapor plumes, haloes)
Crater modification by atmospheres (e.g., weathering, erosion, etc.)

7 Crater chronology
Introduction
Crater counting
Crater size-frequency distributions
Dating planetary surfaces
Impactor flux and changing rates in the early Solar System (e.g., Late Heavy Bombardment)

8 Role of impacts in the origin and evolution of life
Introduction
Delivery of the building blocks for life
Generation of potential substrates for life
Creation of prebiotic environments and habitats for life
Extinction events

9 Role of impacts in planetary evolution
Planetary accretion
Planetary-scale impacts (e.g., Moon forming impact)
Role of impacts in forming and modifing early planetary crusts
Role of impacts in controlling planetary topography (in absence of plate tectonics)
Regolith formation

10 Synthesis and Outlook

Gordon R. Osinski

Dr. Gordon “Oz” Osinski is a Professor and the NSERC/MDA/CSA/CEMI Industrial Research Chair in Earth and Space Exploration in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario (Western), Canada. He holds a PhD from the University of New Brunswick (2004) and a BSc (Hons) from the University of St. Andrews (1999), Scotland, both in Geology. Dr. Osinski’s research interests focus is on understanding impact cratering as a planetary geological process, on the Earth, Moon and Mars. He has conducted fieldwork at dozens of impact craters on four continents over the past 20 years. He has made substantial contributions to understanding the impact cratering process, including shock melting and metamorphism, impact ejecta emplacement, complex crater formation, and impact-generated hydrothermal systems. Dr. Osinski has published over 185 papers in peer-reviewed journals and special papers and has given over 110 conference presentations. He has received numerous awards for this research, including the Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society (2009), the Young Scientist Medal of the Mineralogical Association of Canada (2015), and the Florence Bucke Award from Western (2015). Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious W. W. Hutchison Medal of the Geological Association of Canada and was named a Faculty Scholar at Western, both in 2018. Dr. Osinski is also the lead for Impact Earth, a unique initiative that seels to engage researchers and the public alike in the study of meteorite impacts, fireballs and meteorites.

Affiliations and expertise

Professor and NSERC/MDA/CSA/CEMI Industrial Research Chair in Earth and Space Exploration, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario (Western), Canada

Catherine D. Neish

Dr. Catherine Neish is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. She is an expert in the use of remote sensing observations to study the geology of planetary surfaces, with a particular emphasis on impact cratering and volcanism. Dr. Neish obtained her graduate training in planetary sciences at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona (2008). She then held two postdoctoral research positions at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as well as an Assistant Professorship at the Florida Institute of Technology. To date, Dr. Neish has published over 55 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including 19 as first author, and wrote an invited book chapter on planetary radar for the Encyclopedia of the Solar System (3rd Edition). Dr. Neish is involved in NASA spacecraft missions as a Co-Investigator, including Cassini, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Dragonfly. She has been awarded the Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Science from the American Geophysical Union, for significant contributions to planetary science from a young scientist (2014), an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement (2015), and an Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Science (2017).

Affiliations and expertise

Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, Canada

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