Secondary Impact Craters as Absolute Stratigraphic Markers

Impact cratering is ubiquitous across the Solar System. Due to their abundance, impact craters are key to understanding the evolution of planetary surfaces.

In this project we will exploit the vast secondary crater population to investigate a range of features and processes in the Solar System.

This work will involve refining the method of primary and secondary impact crater identification in remote sensing data, before developing a modern workflow of their use as absolute stratigraphic markers.

This novel approach will be applied to a range of key science questions on different planetary bodies, including Mercury, the Moon, Mars and Europa.

The questions that we will address are: (1) What is the rate of ice flow on Mars? (2) What is the detailed stratigraphy of the lunar Mare? (3) Are there active surface processes on Mercury? (4) How fast is plate tectonics on Europa?

The outcome of this project will be a new, widely applicable, and open method of deriving absolute ages across the Solar System.