Craters and Crater Relaxation
Impact craters are the most frequent geologic features through the solar system, and almost all the planets have them on their surface.
Usefulness of craters for my research:
— Craters are distributed almost evenly on the surface.
— Crater counting technique helps determine the impact age.
Studying crater relaxation helps us better understand the thermal (and structural) evolution of planetary bodies. How?
Lithosphere has finite strength and it can relax under following conditions:
— thick lithosphere
— high background heat flux
The process of crater evolution is sensitive to thermal state. This sensitivity can be used as a probe to study the thermal history of planetary bodies.
I have used crater relaxation to study the thermal evolution of Mars, Venus, Asteroid Vesta. Further, I use this approach to investigate mascon basins.