Geology quiz #4

Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms)

( on the far left of the moon facing the earth) where apollo 12 landed is a vast lunar mare on the western edge of the near side of the Moon.

Lunar highlands (or terrae)

(pg 224) The lunar highlands are filled with jumbled mountains, but there are not folded mountain ranges like the ones on Earth. The lunar highlands are saturated with craters on top of craters.

Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises)

(pg.244) is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis.

Meteorite flux curve

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Orange glass

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Impact basins (multi-ringed, weird terrain)

An impact crater that is more than 186 miles (300 km) across. These basins were created by extremely powerful impacts, which usually cracked and deformed the lunar crust, and eject material over a huge area.

Basalt, vesicular basalt

Basalt- a dark, fine-grained volcanic rock that sometimes displays a columnar structure. It is typically composed largely of plagioclase with pyroxene and olivine. Vesicular Basalt - meaning that they contain holes caused by bubbles of gas in the molten rock.Like bubbles in a carbonated beverage, these bubbles do not form while the magma is under pressure. Only when the molten rock flows out onto the surface, where the pressure is low, do bubbles appear.

Regolith

Both the highlands and the lowlands of the Moon are covered by a layer of powdered rock and crushed fragments...the layer of unconsolidated rocky material covering bedrock. No sharp mountains peaks Bedrock - solid rock underlying loose deposits such as soil or alluvium.

Craters Kepler, Copernicus and Tycho

Craters Kepler- on the left side of the moon. one of the few large craters. one of the youngest craters also. is a lunar impact crater that lies between the Oceanus Procellarum to the west and Mare Insularum in the east. Copernicus- close to kepler, also one of the youngest craters. one of the largest craters. How do you know that its one of the youngest craters? because its lightly scarred by impacts. tycho- at the bottom of the moon. a prominent crater in the third quadrant of the face of the moon, about 56 miles (90 km) in diameter.

Ejecta blanket

Debris blasted out of a crater is called ejecta, and it falls back to blanket the surface around the crater.A generally symmetrical apron of ejecta that surrounds a crater; it is layered thickly at the crater's rim and thin to discontinuous at the blanket's outer edge. structure of impact craters, showing surrounding ejecta.

Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11

FIRST HUMAN TO WALK ON THE MOON While Michael Collins waited in orbit around the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin took the LM down to the surface. Apollo 11 - Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon. first mission to the moon

True or false question

Global scale Earth-type plate tectonics does not occur on the Moon (no evidence of subduction zones, continental collisions, wide rift valleys, etc.)

Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains)

Hadley Rille is a sinuous valley near the edge of Mare Imbrium. pg 252

Van Allen belts (Earth)

High- energy particles from the solar wind leak into the magnetosphere and become trapped within Earth's magnetic field to produce the Van Allen belts of radiation.

Anorthosite

light- colored rock that contributes to the highlands' bright contrast with the dark, iron-rich basalts of the lowlands..... a plutonic rock composed largely of calcic plagioclase.

Apollo lunar landing module (LM)

the portion of the Apollo spacecraft in which two astronauts landed on the moon's surface and then returned to the orbiting command module.

Average density of the Moon, compared to Earth, and what does this tell us?

Its low density indicates that it contains little iron, but the size of its iron core and the amount of remaining heat are unknown. 3.35 g / cm 3 ( 3.27 g / cm 3 uncompressed ). The density of Earth is 5.52 g/cm3. The low density of the Moon means that it has less mass, and less gravity.

Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity)

On the top right of the moon. a dark plain in the first quadrant of the face of the moon:

Secondary craters

Rock ejected from distant impacts can fall back to the surface and form smaller craters

Relative gravity on Moon

The acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Moon is 1.6249 m/s2, about 16.6% that on Earth's surface (1/6 Earth's gravity)

Bright-rayed crater

The fourth stage in the story of Mercury, slow surface evolution, is now limited to micrometeorites, which grind the sur-face to dust; rare larger meteorites, which leave bright- rayed craters; and the slow but intense cycle of heat and cold, which weakens the rock at the surface.

Relative sizes of Earth and Moon

The surface area of the Moon is 37.9 million square kilometers. The surface ares of the whole Earth is 510 million square km, so the area of the Moon compared to Earth is only 7.4%.

Bow shock (Earth)

The surface where the solar wind is first deflected

Different terrains on the Moon

There are two primary types of terrain on the Moon: the heavily cratered and very old highlands and the relatively smooth and younger maria. The maria (which comprise about 16% of the Moon's surface) are huge impact craters that were later flooded by molten lava.

Wrinkle ridges, & scarps

Wrinkle ridges- due to compression of lunar crust - seen in the Maria Both non-sinuous rilles and wrinkle ridges appear due to sagging and compression of the lunar Mare basalts: scarps-Mercury is marked by great curved cliffs These are now understood to have formed when the planet cooled and shrank in diameter by a few kilometers, wrinkling its crust as a drying apple wrinkles its skin. Some of these scarps are as high as 3 km ( 2 mi ) and reach hundreds of kilometers across the surface.

Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds)

a dark plain in the third quadrant of the face of the moon

Aurora (Earth)

a natural electrical phenomenon characterized by the appearance of streamers of reddish or greenish light in the sky, usually near the northern or southern magnetic pole

Lunar breccia

a rock cemented by impact heat and pressure - very common on the Moon's surface (see p. 251).

Complex craters (be able to list features)

a type of large impact crater morphology. Above a certain threshold size, which varies with planetary gravity, the collapse and modification of the transient cavity is much more extensive, and the resulting structure. including shallow, flat floors made of solidified lava, central uplifting (a single peak, multiple peaks, or a ring), and terraces on the inner-rim walls.

Simple craters

bowl-shaped craters with diameters of up to 2-4 km, depending of the target rocks (these diameters values are only valid for terrestrial craters as the change-over diameter between simple and complex crater is also dependent of the gravity).

Core dynamo (Earth)

effects would produce a magnetic field

Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquillity)

is a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the Moon. safe landing site first human landing

Sinuous rille (lava channel or collapsed tube)

long winding channels Sinuous rilles are probably the most recognizable of small volcanic features on the Moon. Many partially resemble river valleys on the Earth. However, the lunar rilles usually flow away from small pit structures. Also, the lunar samples indicate that the Moon has always been bone dry. -Basalt lava channels or tubes that collapsed - uncollapsed sections are probably lunar caves

Origin of Earth's magnetic field

not completely understood, but is thought to be associated with electrical currents produced by the coupling of convective effects and rotation in the spinning liquid metallic outer core of iron and nickel. This mechanism is termed the dynamo effect.

Apollo command module

page 448-449 the long- term living space and command center for the trip. was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation.

Multi-ringed basin

probably from asteroid-sized meteoroids - created "frozen" shock wave imprints as concentric circles: see p. 247

Importance of Earth's magnetic field

serves to deflect most of the solar wind, whose charged particles would otherwise strip away the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

Bright rays

signs of youth.

Lunar mare (or maria)

smooth, dark plains. formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were dubbed maria, Latin for "seas", by early astronomers who mistook them for actual seas.

Terminator

the dividing line between daylight and darkness, are sharp and black, indicating there is no air on the Moon to scatter light and soften shadows......the dividing line between the light and dark part of a planetary body.

Magnetosphere (Earth)

the region surrounding the earth or another astronomical body in which its magnetic field is the predominant effective magnetic field.

Non-sinuous rille (graben [expansion])

these are straight, in comparison to the sinuous rilles