Rima Birt

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Rima Birt

Lat: 21.0°S, Long: 9.0°W, Length: 50 km, Depth: km, Rükl: 54

external image normal_rupes2006-05-07a.jpg
Mario Weigand; The rille is to the left (west) of the Straight Wall.

Images

LPOD Photo Gallery Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images

Maps

(LAC zone 95A4) LAC map Geologic map

Description

The Birt Rille is a slightly curved ~50 km long channel that starts and ends in a pit. Presumably the north end is its origin for the rille/pit there widens and elongates and bisects a low dome. Thierry LeGault's excellent image reveals a short parallel rille that cuts the western edge of the dome. His image also shows a series of offsets in the rille just south of the elongated pit, and a major offset half-way down the rille. Such offsets are unlikely in a lava channel/tube made by flowing lava - which is the origin for sinuous rilles - and suggests that faulting has occurred. But the association of the rille with the dome is strongly indicative of a lava channel origin, so the implication is that the small scale faulting occurred later. This is an uncomfortable interpretation because there is no evidence of faults in the lava except for the offsets. This is officially weird. - tychocrater Jun 30, 2007

Description: Wikipedia

Rima Birt

Additional Information


Nomenclature

Named from nearby crater. (Birt)
Called Rima Birt I on Chart 82 in the Times Atlas of the Moon.

LPOD Articles

New Observations of a Well-Known Area
Straight Wall
Obliquely Viewed Fault
Righteous Recti
Succession
Keeping up with Amateurs

LROC Articles

Probing the lunar surface using small impact craters (the main image in this article shows a small impact ray-crater immediately west of the northern "head" of Rima Birt).

Bibliography

C.A. Wood: Ancient Thebit and Huygens’s Sword, S&T, September 2000, p. 120-121