Problems in Recovering Crater Production Functions

Abstract

Two techniques proposed for the recovery of the crater production functions on densely cratered surfaces were appraised. The first technique classifies craters according to their degree of rim preservation, then interprets the statistics of the freshest craters as closely mimicing the full population's production function. This method is misleading for densely cratered surfaces. The second technique measures and weighs each crater diameter by the fraction of the crater that remains unoverlapped by subsequent impacts. The method is theoretically sound even at saturation crater densities, though it too fails at high densities.