Definition
A simple crater of submillimeter size.
Morphometry
Small microcraters are micron sized; large microcraters are mm sized (Hartung et al. 1975).
Formation
Surface materials on bodies with little or no atmosphere are exposed to mechanical melting and ejection of material from microcraters, produced by the high-velocity impact of cosmic dust particles (Fig. 1; Hörz et al. 1991).
A scanning electron microscope image of a porous interplanetary dust particle that, when impacting an airless body, can produce a microcrater (Fig. 6. in Jessberger et al. 2001)
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References
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Hörz F, Hartung JB, Gault DE (1971) Micrometeorite craters on lunar rock surfaces. J Geophys Res 76:5770–5798
Hörz F, Morrison DA, Gault DE, Oberbed VR et al (1974) The micrometeoroid complex and evolution of the lunar regolith. In: The proceedings of the Soviet-American conference on the cosmochemistry of the Moon and Planets. Lunar Science Institute, Houston
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Murr LE, Rivas JM (1994) Measuring hypervelocity impact velocity from micrometeoroid crater geometry. Int J Impact Eng 15(6):785–795
Nagel K, Fechtig H, Schneider E, Neukum G (1976) Micrometeorite impact craters on Skylab experiment S-149. Interplanetary dust and zodiacal light. Lect Notes Phys 48:275–278. doi:10.1007/3-540-07615-8_493
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Noble, S. (2014). Microcrater. In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_241-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_241-1
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