Extended Data Fig. 4: Horizontal displacement of the crust material during the post-impact viscous relaxation process for basins (D = 800) formed at 50 Myr after tLMO.
From: Obliteration of ancient impact basins on the Moon by viscous relaxation
The lower crust has an average thickness of ~10 km with temperature higher than 1,200 K, forming a flow channel. The top panel depicts the post-relaxation crustal structure of the basin with initial crustal thickness of 30 km after ~8 Myr since the impact event and the bottom panel is for the case with initial crustal thickness of 40 km after ~9 Myr since the impact. In each panel, the green profiles represent the initial topographic surface and crust-mantle interface (Moho) from the impact cratering simulations; the black dashed lines represent the post-relaxation topographic surface and crust-mantle interface. The arrow shows the flow direction. The color represents the horizontal displacement of materials from their initial positions, where a negative value represents a displacement towards the basin center and a positive value represents a displacement away from the basin center. The crust annulus, formed by the collapse of central peak during impact cratering process77, disappears after the relaxations for both basins (see Supplementary Movies 3 and 4 for details).
