Morphology and Interior Structure of Impact Basins on Mars

Abstract

The seismic data collected by NASA's InSight mission allowed the development of refined interior structure and thermal evolution models of Mars [e.g., 1, 2], significantly expanding our understanding of the planet's physical properties. This, in turn, allowed the development of numerical simulations of large impacts to study impact basins, i.e., impact craters larger than ~90 km on Mars [3]. This approach can be used to constrain the planet’s properties at the time of bombardment and track how these properties changed over time and across different regions. Here, we report some of the main findings of our ongoing investigation of impact basins on Mars. We used numerical simulations of large impacts to understand and characterise Mars' basins. We focused on establishing a method to accurately measure their size, identifying the main parameters controlling their morphology, and characterising the formation of rings from a structural geology perspective.