Farside Lunar Dome Survey PART I:
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Mare Orientale by Raffaello Lena



With this issue we open a new project that will devote its efforts to the Farside Lunar Dome Survey There must be domes on the farside, but fewer, because there is less mare material. Farside Lunar Dome Survey would be quite valuable to the community. We will do a list of Farside Lunar Domes. Lunar domes are gentle swells between 3 and 60 km across, and at most a few hundred meters in height. Most have very low angle of inclinations, only a few degrees at most . Domes probably formed with two basic modes of formation:

a) as constructional forms. These formed at the end of a volcanic era, where the rate of extrusion is lower, and the temperature of eruption is lower;
b) as subsurface intrusions. This would be similar to a laccolith on the Earth. Two features were identified in Mare Orientale. They look as possible laccoliths and are reported here. The domes appear flat and elliptical in shape and the slope appear gentle. This could favor the second theory mentioned under point b: a subsurface intrusions of magma.

The features are reported below: Dome located at 96.66 ° W and 22.93° S (LO 195 h1 image 195domea) Dome located at 95.71°W and 17.907°S (LO 195 h2 image 195 dome b) In addition, there are protrusions on the domes. These are difficult to clearly define.

Two possible mechanisms for the origin of these protrusions are:

(1) that they are peaks which were embayed by the dome, and
(2) that they are endogenic, created as small cinder cones on top of the dome. Given the geologic setting of the structures the present author feels that they do represent real domes.

Next report for a full study is in progress Roma April 13 2004

FIG 1


FIG 2

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