Date: 01 Dec 2006 22:31:21
From: canopus56
Subject: Primer on Geology of the Nearside Moon
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http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/Structure/moongeo/MoonGeologyTable.html
This is to announce an amateur website that provides an introduction to
the geology of the nearside of the Moon. Finder lists for 835 lunar
craters and other features by lunar geologic era are provided based on
Don Wilhems' 1987 classic, A Geologic History of the Moon, USGS Survey
Paper 1348, Dr. Charles Wood's Lunar Picture of the Day (LPOD) image
gallery, and USGS-NASA Geologic Atlas of the Moon charts, prepared by
NASA as part of the Apollo program. Heavy reliance is made on 12 color
geologic maps, Charts 1 through 12, at the back of Wilhems' Geologic
History of the Moon in order to illustrate which portions of the
nearside Moon relate to several major lunar geologic eras.
Examples of various lunar features are illustrated by linking to images
at Wood's LPOD and NASA's Earth Observatory websites. This primer is
intended to provide a quick index reference to images of key lunar
features to support local amateur public and school star parties on the
geologic era of features near the lunar terminator. It should be
considered a prefatory introduction to lunar geology prior to reading
more in-depth books such as Wood's The Modern Moon: A Personal View,
the introductory chapter to Westfall's Atlas of the Lunar Terminator,
or Wilhems' technical Geologic History.
A relatively inexpensive ($30 USD) software alternative to this website
is Patrick Chevalley's Virtual Moon Atlas (VMA), Pro Edition, Version
3.5, software. The Pro Edition of VMA includes a database program -
Datlun - that includes geologic era coding for about 2,800 out of
approximately 7,800 nearside features.
Five feature reference tables will be of interest to most amateurs:
Table 1: Lunar Geologic Eras - Summary
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