Mendel-Rydberg Basin

(unofficial name)

Lat: 50°S, Long:94°W , Main ring diam: 630 km, Depth: 5.24 or 5.56 km, Rukl: (farside)

Left:Clementine data: LIDAR altitude-coded shaded relief map
Right: Annotated Clementine view of region using the LTVT software.

Images

(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
Definite	Nectarian	10		600 m	Yes, 31 mG gravity anomaly

Basins filled with named maria are named for the mare, and basins that were previously recognized as craters still bear the crater name. Basins located between craters have the names of two opposite craters with a hyphen in between. The naming of this basin seems to be a bit of an anomaly: Mendel is on the outer rim, Rydberg is not. A better name might have been Mendel-Baade Basin or, perhaps, the Parvum Basin, since the central mare was apparently once known as Mare Parvum? - Jim Mosher
Don E. Wilhelms seems to have been the source of the name Mendel-Rydberg Basin (see pages 86 and 387 (footnote n.13) in Don's book To A Rocky Moon, a Geologist's History of Lunar Exploration). Before Don's Mendel-Rydberg Basin, it was called the SouthEast Basin by William K. Hartmann and Gerard P. Kuiper.- DannyCaes May 8, 2014
The low-albedo region at the centre of the Mendel-Rydberg Basin (near crater Andersson) might have called Palus Solitatis. Unfortunately, this name was not approved by the IAU. See page Luna Incognita.