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Flat-Floored Crater

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Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

Definition

An impact crater having a floor that is relatively flat. The flat portion of the floor may occur at the crater center or occur as an annulus around a central uplift.

Synonyms

Flat-floored impact crater

Description

Impact craters can have a variable floor morphology ranging from bowl shaped with relatively steep walls (e.g., simple crater) to more complicated morphologies with central uplifts, fractured floors, and terraced margins. One variant of the floor morphology is a relatively flat, more or less level floor. Such flat floors extend across the entire reach of the crater bottom or can be interrupted at the center by a central peak or peak ring. Flat-floored craters occur in complex craters or highly degraded or modified simple craters.

Depending on the specific geology (Head 1976; Cintala et al. 1977; DeHon 1980; Ravine and Grieve 1986), the floor may be smooth (e.g., small craters with a floor covered by impact melt or aeolian material) or it can be rough or hummocky...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA

    Jeffrey B. Plescia

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  1. Jeffrey B. Plescia
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Correspondence to Jeffrey B. Plescia .

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Plescia, J.B. (2014). Flat-Floored Crater. In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_440-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_440-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9213-9

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