Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

New Views of Bowditch

A lava terrace within the farside crater Bowditch. LROC NAC M180493674L, image width is ~4 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Bowditch is a highly irregularly shaped farside crater partially filled with a mare basalt (25.0°S, 103.2°E). Today's Featured Image is located along the inner wall of the crater, where the mare deposit meets the wall (24.935°S, 102.705°E). A section of the crater wall is visible in the upper left hand corner of the image, there is a step down in topography from left to right. All along the inner wall of Bowditch there is a higher elevation ring, or terrace.

It is thought that this terrace is a marker of the highest level of liquid lava within the crater. As the lava cooled and solidified within the Bowditch depression it subsided into the center of the depression, causing a lower final elevation of mare basalt towards the center of the crater. Lava terraces such as this one provide important clues about the thickness, viscosity, composition, and cooling rate of lunar lavas and will help us better understand volcanism on the Moon.

LROC WAC context image of the mare-filled Bowditch crater. The white box marks the location of the Featured Image. Image width is 48 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

View the entire LROC NAC frame to explore more of the Bowditch mare basalt deposit!

Related Images:

Bowditch Lava Terraces

A Lunar Dichotomy

The Mare-highlands Boundary in Tsiolkovskiy!


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