Mare Moscoviense

Moscoviense Basin

(unofficial name; IAU feature name for central 277 km of mare: Mare Moscoviense )
See also the Appleton-Tsu Basin.

Lat: 27.28°N, Long: 148.12°E, Main ring diam: 420 km, Depth: 5.25-5.96 km, Rükl: (farside) Nectarian

Left: Lunar Orbiter V -124M, Middle: Clementine Clementine LIDAR Altimeter texture from PDS Map-a-Planet remapped to north-up aerial view by LTVT. The dot is the center position and the white circle the main ring position from Chuck Wood's Impact Basin Database. Grid spacing = 10 degrees.
Right: LROC

Images

LPOD Photo Gallery Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images
WARNING:
None of the five Apollo 10 photographs mentioned in the LPI's list of Apollo Images show Mare Moscoviense, because these photographs show the Near Side's SOUTHEASTERN part! - DannyCaes Nov 14, 2012
- The first 15 frames of Apollo 16's Hasselblad magazine 122-QQ show an oblique northward looking view at Mare Moscoviense's dark floor (at the horizon).
- Mare Moscoviense was also captured on several oblique north looking frames made by Apollo 16's Fairchild metric/mapping camera, of which AS16-M-0732 (of magazine REV 27) shows the flat plain of Mare Moscoviense at the central part of the curved horizon.
Research Apollo 16 photography: Danny Caes

Maps

(LAC zone 48B3) USGS Digital Atlas PDF

Basin Classification

(description of terms and most numeric basin data from Wood, C.A. (2004) Impact Basin Database)
 

Certainty of Existence	USGS Age	Wilhelms Age Group	Ring Diameters	Mare Thickness	Mascon
Certain	Nectarian	10	140, 220, 300, 420, 630	1.5	Yes

Kaguya investigators conclude that the thickness in the mare is a maximum of 600 m. image
 
 

Description

Moscoviense in a multi-ring impact basin that contains the named feature Mare Moscoviense.

Description: Wikipedia

Mare Moscoviense

Additional Information

• A small swirl (or rather: a small field of swirls) of 35 km^2 is associated with this basin (Hughes and others, 2006). The location of this small swirl field is at the western part of Mare Moscoviense, south-southeast of Tereshkova.
• Mare area of 19,600 km^2 according to measurements by Jim Whitford-Stark.
• Magnetic field anomaly and nearby gravity anomaly. Milbury et al, 2008
• Crater counts yield mare ages of 3.50 b.y. (NW side), 3.47 (NW side), and 2.57 and 3.55 b.y. (E side), evidence of multiple periods of volcanism. Haruyama, J. and others, 2008.
• Area of floor mare 28,350 km2 and Imbrian age. NW mare 5-8 wt% TiO2, 8-9 wt% FeO. SE mare 1-4 wt%, 10-11 wt% FeO. Dark halo craters outside inner ring to S indicate buried mare. (Gillis and Spudis, 1996)
• IAU page: Mare Moscoviense
• The farside map of Hallwag shows a large distinct (unnamed) crater at Mare Moscoviense's southern part (southeast of Belyaev, southwest of Komarov, northwest of Leonov).- DannyCaes Apr 9, 2011
• A bright raycrater just outside the north-northwestern part of Mare Moscoviense's rim is printed as a distinct white spot on Clementines photographic version of LAC 31 (page 62). Its inner slopes and floor could be explored in real close-up when the coordinates LON 143.7, LAT 32.66 ('16 M/PIX) are added in the lower margin's oblong frames of the LRO's ACT-REACT Quick Map. Enjoy! - DannyCaes Jun 13, 2011
• One of two basins with crustal thickness near zero km. The Crust of the Moon as Seen by Grail by Wieczorek et al (2013).

Nomenclature

• The IAU Planetary Gazetteer translates the name as "Sea of Muscovy".
• Mare discovered in Lunik 3 imaging of farside and named in Atlas of the Far Side of the Moon; approved by the IAU in 1961 (Whitaker, p 232).
• The impact basin was named for the mare. The floor-fractured crater Komarov is at the bottom right.
• Danny Caes calls the system of wrinkle ridges near Tereshkova (at the western part of Mare Moscoviense) Dorsa Tereshkova, while the system of wrinkle ridges between Titov and the northeastern part of Mare Moscoviense's rim is called Dorsa Titov.

LROC Articles

• Forked Impact Melt Flows at Farside Crater, Mare Moscoviense Constellation Site, Where Moscoviense Meets the Highlands.

LPOD Articles

• Younger Farside, The Famous Moscow Sea, APPLETON-TSU BASIN?

Bibliography

• Tomokatsu Morota and 15 others (2010) Mare volcanism in the lunar farside Moscoviense region: Implication for lateral variation in magma production of the Moon, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L21202, 5 PP., 2009 doi:10.1029/2009GL040472
• K.G. Thaisen, and 8 others (2010) Geology of the Moscoviense Basin: Implications for the character of the highland crust. 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2010) abstract 2169.
• Nekvasil, H and others (2012) Large Scale Lunar VOlcanism - Inferences from Moscoviense Basin 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, abstract 2178.

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