Figure - available from: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
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Example of an area within the Caloris exterior plains used for low‐reflectance blue plains (LBP) sampling. The basemap is a MESSENGER/Mercury Dual Imaging System enhanced‐color global mosaic. In dark gray are footprints obtained by MASCS with conditions out of the filters (see Section 3.1.2). In green are footprints that have spectral properties associated with the exterior LBP. In red footprints that have spectral properties associated with the interior high‐reflectance red plains (HRP) and in white footprints associated with low reflectance material (LRM). In black are footprints that have spectral properties associated neither to interior HRP, exterior LBP nor LRM. This figure highlights footprints that need to be removed for the spectral definition of LBP and confirmation of the end‐member.
Source publication
Results from the NASA/MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission showed that 27% of Mercury's surface is covered by smooth plains mostly produced by extensive effusive volcanism. The Caloris impact basin is associated with two, mostly volcanic, smooth plains, one in its interior and one surrounding the basin....
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Citations
... We envisage that fusion of morphostratigraphic units and SUs will yield particularly interesting scientific insights in H03, which contains part of the Caloris basin. For example, while several studies have looked at the geomorphology and spectral properties of the smooth plains within and around Caloris (Caminiti et al., 2023;Denevi et al., 2013;Rothery et al., 2017), none has yet looked into the exact relationship between the Caloris morphostratigraphic units and their reflectance spectra. This is important work to be done because Caloris is the largest well-preserved impact basin on Mercury and thus has excavated material from great depth and deposited it over a wide area on the planet's surface, making them amenable to different remote sensing analyses. ...
... One way to test this would be to look for mixing trends in spectral indices. Caminiti et al. (2023) have performed a spectral characterization of Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS: McClintock & Lankton, 2007) spectra of Calorisassociated units, similar to the spectral characterization of H05 units in MDIS data by Zambon et al. (2022). Caminiti et al. (2023) used spectral indices to identify high-reflectance red plains, low-reflectance blue plains, and low-reflectance material within and around the Caloris basin. ...
... Caminiti et al. (2023) have performed a spectral characterization of Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS: McClintock & Lankton, 2007) spectra of Calorisassociated units, similar to the spectral characterization of H05 units in MDIS data by Zambon et al. (2022). Caminiti et al. (2023) used spectral indices to identify high-reflectance red plains, low-reflectance blue plains, and low-reflectance material within and around the Caloris basin. Atget crater lies on Caloris Planitia, which is a highreflectance red plain, but Atget has exhumed low-reflectance material on its floor. ...
Plain Language Summary
Geological maps of rocks on Earth include information about what landforms the rocks exhibit, what they are made from, their orientation, and more. Many such details require ground observations, but these are generally not available for planetary geological maps, which rely on spacecraft data. Spacecraft images can be used to map planetary surface textures (geomorphology), but they can also be used to measure surfaces' responses to light (reflectance or emission spectra), which contain information about what the surface rocks are made from, their physical properties (e.g., grain size, roughness, porosity), and how long they have been exposed at the surface. We have combined earlier, independent geomorphic and spectral maps of the Rachmaninoff impact basin on Mercury to create a new “geostratigraphic” map that is more like a geological map that could be made of Earth. The new map highlights places that in the original geomorphic map would have been mapped all as a single unit, but are divisible based on spectral variations, attributable to differences in what the rocks are made from. This allows us to reconstruct a more detailed geological history of the region. Our method can be applied to other regions on Mercury and to other planetary surfaces.
