The Moon's major impact basins

Filed under pretty pictures, mapping, the Moon, geology, explaining science, impact cratering, Late Heavy Bombardment

Go Back

According to Fassett et al. (JGR, in press as of September 2013), here is the order in which the mapped basins formed, from oldest to youngest, according to crater counting. Where basins clearly superpose each other, that's noted. Basins are in caps where they are in caps on the map above, to help locate them.

• SOUTH POLE-AITKEN (underlies everything)
• Coulomb-Sarton (underlies Birkhoff)
• Dirichlet-Jackson (underlies Korolev)
• Cruger-Sirsalis
• SMYTHII (underlies Crisium)
• Schiller-Zucchius
• Amundsen-Ganswindt (underlies Schrödinger)
• NUBIUM (underlies Humorum)
• Poincaré
• Lorentz
• Fitzgerald-Jackson (underlies Freundlich-Sharonov)
• Birkhoff
• Ingenii
• SERENITATIS (maybe underlies Nectaris)
• Apollo (underlies Korolev and Hertzprung)
• Freunchlich-Sharonov (underlies Moscoviense)
• NECTARIS
• KOROLEV (underlies Hertzprung)
• Mendeleev
• HERTZSPRUNG
• Grimaldi (underlies Mendel-Rydberg)
• Planck (underlies Schrödinger)
• MOSCOVIENSE
• CRISIUM (underlies Humboldtanium)
• HUMORUM
• HUMBOLDTANIUM
• IMBRIUM
• Schrödinger
• ORIENTALE