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Boulder Field

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Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Definition

Field of apparently intact rocks or rock fragments (Accardo et al. 2012), specifically those with particle size larger than 25.6 cm if based on the terminology of sedimentary geology.

Synonyms

Blockfield, Rough terrain (on Itokawa)

Description

Venus: The Venera 9 landing site panorama (Fig. 1) shows a boulder field on a sloped surface in an area shaped by rifting and volcanism (Weitz and Basilevsky 1993).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Field of angular and partly weathered boulders on the eastern slope of Beta Regio on Venus at about 32 S, 291 E (Weitz and Basilevsky 1993). Rocks are about 30–40 cm across (Venera 9 landing site panorama) NSSDC ID: 75-050D-01A (Copyright 2003 Don P. Mitchell. All rights reserved)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Space Astronomy Centre, European Space Agency, P.O. Box 78, 28691, Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain

    Michael Küppers

  2. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO, USA

    Bradley L. Jolliff

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Kobe University, Nada, Kobe, Japan

    Akiko M. Nakamura

Authors
  1. Michael Küppers
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  2. Bradley L. Jolliff
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  3. Akiko M. Nakamura
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Küppers, M., Jolliff, B.L., Nakamura, A.M. (2014). Boulder Field. In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_414-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_414-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9213-9

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