Rima Ariadaeus near Silberschlag_IR_12-05-12 05-29-38_PSE_R

Rima Ariadaeus near Silberschlag_IR_12-05-12 05-29-38_PSE_R - Moon: Central Region
The central region of Rima Ariadaeus diagonally crosses this image. Here the rille is up to 5 km across and ~130 km of the overall 220 km length is shown. It is an example of a graben - a subsidance between two parallel faults. It is interesting to see how the subsidance has occured after the other features were established except where the rille has been tectonically disrupted just next to the group of mountains north of centre. These features resulted from shrinkage of the basaltic plain. For reference, the crater in the top LH corner is Silberschlag (13.4 km), it is a bowl-like structure of depth 2.5 km. The image was captured in IR, and the rings within the larger craters are an artifact more common in my IR imaging for some reason. The crater just north of the rille is Silberschlag A (7 km) and the larger crater in the bottom LH corner is Whewell (14 km).
Waning Moon, 57% full
12 May 2012, 05:29 UT

Stadius_IR_13-01-22 22-59-27_PSE_R