Crustal Thickness and Magnetization beneath Crisium and Moscoviense Lunar Impact Basins
Abstract
GRAIL data recently confirmed that the Crisium and Moscoviense large impact basins have the thinnest (< 5 km) crust of the Moon. Crisium also shows two localized intense magnetic fields located nearby its North and South borders, while Moscoviense shows a relatively-intense central magnetic field anomaly. In details, these magnetic fields are exactly located where the thinnest (<1-3 km) crust within these basins is predicted by the crustal thickness models. Here we investigate this apparent anti-correlation by modeling the sources of these potential field data using several approaches in 2D and 3D. Our results show that, beneath the very thin Mare basalt layer, a strongly-magnetized layer with laterally-varying thickness-but still thin (~2-3 km)-and density can be present. This layer may correspond to an impact melt sheet with large magnetization due to accumulation of iron-rich fluids during the impact event and/or to post-impact processes.
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