Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

What Is A Polygonal Impact Crater? A Proposed Framework Toward Quantifying Crater Shapes, Stuart J. Robbins, Jamie D. Riggs

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

Impact craters are used for a wide array of investigations of planetary surfaces. A crater form that is somewhat rare, forming only ∼10% of impact craters, is the polygonal impact crater (or PIC). These craters have been visually, manually identified as having at least two rim segments that are best represented as straight lines. Such straight lines or edges are most often used to infer details about the subsurface crust where faults control the structure of the crater cavity as it formed. The PIC literature is scant, but almost exclusively these craters are identified manually, and the potentially straight edges …