abstract: Both volcanism and impact cratering produce ejecta and associated deposits incorporating a molten rock component. While the heat sources are different (exogenous vs. endogenous), the end results are landforms with similar morphologies including ponds and flows of impact melt and lava around the central crater. Ejecta from both impact and volcanic craters can also include a high percentage of melted rock. Using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Narrow Angle Camera (LROC NAC) images, crucial details of these landforms are finally revealed, suggesting a much more dynamic Moon than is generally appreciated. Impact melt ponds and flows at craters as small as several hundred meters in diameter provide empirical evidence of abundant melting during the impact cratering process (much more than was previously thought), and this melt is mobile on the lunar surface for a significant time before solidifying. Enhanced melt deposit occurrences in the lunar highlands (compared to the mare) suggest that porosity, target composition, and pre-existing topography influence melt production and distribution. Comparatively deep impact craters formed in young melt deposits connote a relatively rapid evolution of materials on the lunar surface. On the other end of the spectrum, volcanic eruptions have produced the vast, plains-style mare basalts. However, little was previously known about the details of small-area eruptions and proximal volcanic deposits due to a lack of resolution. High-resolution images reveal key insights into small volcanic cones (0.5-3 km in diameter) that resemble terrestrial cinder cones. The cones comprise inter-layered materials, spatter deposits, and lava flow breaches. The widespread occurrence of the cones in most nearside mare suggests that basaltic eruptions occur from multiple sources in each basin and/or that rootless eruptions are relatively common. Morphologies of small-area volcanic deposits indicate diversity in eruption behavior of lunar basaltic eruptions driven by magmatic volatiles. Finally, models of polar volatile behavior during impact-heating suggest that chemical alteration of minerals in the presence of liquid water is one possible outcome that was previously not thought possible on the Moon. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geological Sciences 2016

abstract: Impact cratering has played a key role in the evolution of the solid surfaces of Solar System bodies. While much of Earth’s impact record has been erased, its Moon preserves an extensive history of bombardment. Quantifying the timing of lunar impact events is crucial to understanding how impacts have shaped the evolution of early Earth, and provides the basis for estimating the ages of other cratered surfaces in the Solar System. Many lunar impact melt rocks are complex mixtures of glassy and crystalline “melt” materials and inherited clasts of pre-impact minerals and rocks. If analyzed in bulk, these samples can yield complicated incremental release 40Ar/39Ar spectra, making it challenging to uniquely interpret impact ages. Here, I have used a combination of high-spatial resolution 40Ar/39Ar geochronology and thermal-kinetic modeling to gain new insights into the impact histories recorded by such lunar samples. To compare my data to those of previous studies, I developed a software tool to account for differences in the decay, isotopic, and monitor age parameters used for different published 40Ar/39Ar datasets. Using an ultraviolet laser ablation microprobe (UVLAMP) system I selectively dated melt and clast components of impact melt rocks collected during the Apollo 16 and 17 missions. UVLAMP 40Ar/39Ar data for samples 77135, 60315, 61015, and 63355 show evidence of open-system behavior, and provide new insights into how to interpret some complexities of published incremental heating 40Ar/39Ar spectra. Samples 77115, 63525, 63549, and 65015 have relatively simple thermal histories, and UVLAMP 40Ar/39Ar data for the melt components of these rocks indicate the timing of impact events—spanning hundreds of millions of years—that influenced the Apollo 16 and 17 sites. My modeling and UVLAMP 40Ar/39Ar data for sample 73217 indicate that some impact melt rocks can quantitatively retain evidence for multiple melt-producing impact events, and imply that such polygenetic rocks should be regarded as high-value sampling opportunities during future exploration missions to cratered planetary surfaces. Collectively, my results complement previous incremental heating 40Ar/39Ar studies, and support interpretations that the Moon experienced a prolonged period of heavy bombardment early in its history. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geological Sciences 2017

abstract: Impact craters are ubiquitous throughout the Solar System, formed by one of the principal processes responsible for surface modification of terrestrial planets and solid bodies (i.e., asteroids, icy moons). The impact cratering process is well studied, particularly on the Moon and Mercury, where the results remain uncomplicated by atmospheric effects, plate tectonics, or interactions with water and ices. Crater measurements, used to determine relative and absolute ages for geologic units by relating the cumulative crater frequency per unit area to radiometrically-determined ages from returned samples, are sensitive to the solar incidence angle of images used for counts. Earlier work is quantitatively improved by investigating this important effect and showing that absolute model ages are most accurately determined using images with incidence angles between 65&deg; and 80&deg;, and equilibrium crater diameter estimates are most accurate at ~80&deg; incidence angle. A statistical method is developed using crater size-frequencies to distinguish lunar mare age units in the absence of spectral differences. Applied to the Moon, the resulting areal crater densities confidently identify expansive units with >300&ndash;500 my age differences, distinguish non-obvious secondaries, and determine that an area >1&times;104 km2 provides statistically robust crater measurements. This areal crater density method is also applied to the spectrally-homogeneous volcanic northern smooth plains (NSP) on Mercury. Although crater counts and observations of embayed craters indicate that the NSP experienced at least two resurfacing episodes, no observable age units are observed using areal crater density measurements, so smooth plains emplacement occurred over a relatively short timescale (<500 my). For the first time, the distribution of impact melt on Mercury and the Moon are compared at high resolution. Mercurian craters with diameters &ge;30 km have a greater areal extent of interior melt deposits than similarly sized lunar craters, a result consistent with melt-generation model predictions. The effects of shaking on compositional sorting within a granular regolith are experimentally tested, demonstrating the possibility of mechanical segregation of particles in the lunar regolith. These results provide at least one explanation toward understanding the inconsistencies between lunar remote sensing datasets and are important for future spacecraft sample return missions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geological Sciences 2013