Catalogs of Lunar Craters

Lunar maps and atlases are generally well known because they are often widely used as references to identify lunar surface features - and many are beautiful collector's items. A much smaller number of catalogs of lunar craters and other surface features exist, and they are less well known. This annotated list includes catalogs that contain measurements of lunar dimensions. Other catalogs that are predominately of positions or nomenclature are not included. It is interesting that Young's catalog was the model for the System of Lunar Craters and its update, the LPL Catalog of Lunar Craters. The latter was the basis for most following catalogs. - tychocrater Mar 28, 2009

1878: Charte der Gebirge des Mondes. J.F.J. Schmidt.
Although Mädler and Schroter before him measured crater depths and peak heights, Schmidt bested everyone with 2,894 micrometer measurements and 109 shadow length determinations. His measurements, in toises (=1.95 m), were widely used for the next 100 years.

1929 & 1931: The Altitudes and Lunar Craters and The Distribution of Lunar Altitudes. T.L. MacDonald.
With these two papers, English selenographer MacDonald initiated modern measurement of crater dimensions.

1949 The Face of the Moon. Ralph B.Baldwin.
Most catalogs are compiled for their own value, but Baldwin compiled data for 329 craters for use in his investigations of the origins of lunar craters. Baldwin tabulated depth, diameter and rim height measures from Schmidt, MacDonald and others, and he added information on rim sharpness (class) and central peaks.

1953: A Catalogue of Lunar Craters. James Young, published privately by D.W.G. Arthur.
One of the earliest systematic catalogs of craters, compiled in the 1930s or 40s. Includes for 1,417 craters larger than 10 miles in diameter the IAU name, number and position, plus Young's determination of diameters and indication of central peak and if the crater formed on mare or highland material.

1963 The Measure of the Moon. Ralph B. Baldwin.
Table 7 contains a catalog of about 342 craters, including rim sharpness, floor flooding, diameter, depth, rim height & width, and central peak information. These are said to be "known facts", and sources are not given, however, at least some values are different from those in the 1949 catalog.

1963-1966: System of Lunar Craters D.W.G. Arthur, A. Agneiray, C.A. Wood, R. Horvath, T. Weller and C. Chapman.
Four separate quadrant catalogs were published over 4 years (with various combinations of authors), including about 11,300 nearside craters larger than 5.5 km in diameter. Included were measurements from the Photographic Lunar Atlas of diameters and determinations of rim sharpness, existence of central peaks and terraces, and whether it occurred on mare or highlands. This catalog was inspired by Young's of 1953.

1964: Boston University Catalog of Lunar Craters. G.S. Hawkins, D.D. Friesen, P.D. Mitchell, F.H. Byers, B. Aghassi and L. Belsky.
2,659 craters were measured on selected regions of the Photographic Lunar Atlas. This program was unique in independently determining the coordinates of craters from PLA prints. In addition to crater diameters, information is provided on rim definition, polygonality, and notes on peaks and other features.

1968: Meteoritic Origin and Consequent Endogenic Modification of Large Lunar Craters - A Study in Analytical Geomorphology. R.J. Pike, Jr. (unpublished dissertation).
Collection of data for 959 small floorless craters and 602 larger ones. Measures of crater diameters, depths, floor diameters, ejecta widths and rim heights came from Ranger, LAC and other early charts.

1973: LPL Catalog of Lunar Craters C.A. Wood and L.A. Andersson.
This is a stealth document. It was ready to be published when I left for Africa in 1973, but it never appeared. The LPL Catalog contained for nearside craters new measures on Lunar Orbiter IV prints of crater diameters, depths (from shadow length measures), floor diameters and information on rim crest sharpness and the presence of central peaks and wall terraces. The full catalog has mostly disappeared without ever being published. D.W.G. Arthur published 1900 depth measurements (calculated with his new method) from the catalog, and the catalog was the basis for the Andersson and Whitaker 1982 nomenclature catalog. Arthur (1974) referred to this stealth catalog as Wood, C.A, et al (1974) Lunar Crater Statistics - Earth Face. Communications of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, No. 203, University of Arizona (in press).

1976: Crater Dimensions from Apollo Data and Supplemental Sources. Richard J.Pike (The Moon 15, 463-477)
Measuring from Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps, Pike determined crater diameter, depth, rim height, flank width, circularity and floor diameter for 484 craters. Because these dimensions were measured from high resolution contour maps this catalog probably has the highest accuracy of any. The document can be downloaded.

1982: NASA Catalog of Lunar Nomenclature. Andersson, L.A, and Whitaker, E.A, 1982: NASA Reference Publication 1097.
This is available as a PDF file and as a text file that easily can be imported into Excel. Nearside crater data come from Wood and Andersson (1973) and Leif Andersson measured diameters (no depths) and positions for farside craters; Ewen Whitaker gave letter designations for farside craters. After corrections, it was the basis of the 7000+ lettered crater positions incorporated into the IAU Planetary Gazetteer of lunar nomenclature in 2006.

1987: Morphological Catalog of Lunar Craters. Edited by V.V. Shevchenko
This is the most complete catalog yet published. It includes information on 14,923 craters larger than 10 km visible on the lunar nearside and farside. The catalog includes information on latitude, longitude, crater diameter, rim degradational state, terraces and slumping, central peaks, crater chains, floor character, the nature of the pre-crater surface and the presence of rays. Best yet, this catalog is online! Preliminary description and analysis.

2000: Atlas of the Lunar Terminator. John Westfall.
Contains a table listing about 1700 diameters and depths, apparently for all named nearside craters, from unspecified sources.

2007: Digitized Apollo Era Lunar Crater Depth and Other Feature Measurements Kurt Fisher
Compilation from Arthur (1974) and Pike (1976) of 1,866 crater depths, and 42 central peak heights from Wood (19xx). Published as appendix to The Third Dimension: Crater Depths from the Apollo Era to the Present. in Selenology Today #5.

2007: Recovery of Central Peaks Heights for 42 Nearside Lunar Craters after Pike 1976 shown on LTOs. Kurt Fisher.
Following Pike's example, Fisher measured the heights of 42 central peaks on Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps.

2009: Stratigraphy of Lunar Craters. Don E. Wilhelms and Charles J. Byrne.
This online catalog collects age assessment from stratigraphic age plates in Wilhelms' Geologic History of the Moon. The catalog lists ages for each crater larger than 30 km in diameter (60 km for the oldest, pre-Nectarian craters. In addition to being a convenient listing of data originally available only on USGS maps (and in the title line of The Moon-Wiki), this catalog has been updated and corrected by Wilhelms based upon new images and data.
Appendix A is a listing of lunar craters sorted by n.ame
Appendix B sorts lunar craters by LAC chart number.

2009: Lunar Impact Crater Database A. Losiak, T. Kohout, K. O’Sulllivan, K. Thaisen, and S Weider.
The link downloads a large Excel spreadsheet that contains information on 8,862 lunar craters. The catalog uses McDowell's digitization of the 1982 Andersson and Whitaker NASA Catalog of Lunar Nomenclature (and thus is based ultimately on the unpublished Wood and Andersson catalog of 1973) for crater names, positions and diameters. The students who compiled this catalog added equations from the literature to add calculated values of rim height, central peak height, basal diameter and volume, floor and wall diameters, impact melt thickness, ejecta blanket thickness, radial distance of continuous ejecta, and transient cavity dimensions. The database also includes stratigraphic age from Wilhelms and Byrne (2009). A description of the catalog/database is included on the Excel file and here. If you use this catalog make sure you understand that most of the numbers given are based on empirical relationships rather than measured values.

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