English: Brayley G crater, north of
Brayley itself,
Oceanus Procellarum, the moon. This is Figure 228 of
Apollo Over the Moon (NASA SP-362, 1978), which has the following caption (edited for clarity because the feature name was not formally named at the time of publication):
The very young rimless crater near the center of this picture (
Brayley G) is located near the area where
Oceanus Procellarum and
Mare Imbrium join. The crater apparently formed in
regolith-covered mare
basalt. It differs from lunar impact craters of comparable size and age by its lack of a raised rim, surrounding ejecta deposit, or associated secondary impact craters. In addition, its interior walls do not show the steep slopes with craggy outcrops of rock in their upper parts, nor the streams of debris-avalanche deposits and talus that are usually seen in the walls of impact craters of comparable age and size.
Judging from the clear and sharply formed pattern of concentrically curved grooves and scarps that surround the hole, the material near this depression has apparently subsided into a subsurface void. Because of the extreme rarity and inferred short lifetime of steep slopes on the Moon, the latest subsidence must have taken place very recently, after most of the 50- to 300- m diameter craters that densely pepper the nearby mare surface were formed. Movement of the regolithic debris layer during
subsidence apparently smoothed out most, if not all, of the craters that must have existed near the depression. Now the depression is surrounded by low, curved
fault scarps and narrow, curved grooves that may be fault troughs (
grabens) or may represent drainage of regolithic debris into cracks that opened in the underlying sagging basalt rock. The few craters that have formed on the subsided surface compare in density to the craters formed on the cluster (arrow) of
Aristarchus secondary impact craters and associated herring- bone ridges; comparable ages for the Aristarchus secondary features and the depression are thus indicated. The subsidence was triggered either by the ground shock or seismic wavetrain generated when Aristarchus was formed 300 km to the west, or by the impacts of the secondary features.
The subdued depression in the upper left may be a similar older feature that was flooded by a later lava flow that now covers the area. The density of craters within the depression and the density on the surrounding lava are comparable. Alternatively, the subsidence there may have been incomplete; however, there is no sign that this subsidence is as young as that in the deeper crater.-R.E.E. (
Richard E. Eggleton)