Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Brisbane Z's Australean wrinkle ridge

A beautiful wrinkle ridge within Brisbane Z crater in Mare Australe. Image width is 500 m and illumination is from the left, LROC NAC M134714924L [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

This wrinkle ridge is located within the crater Brisbane Z, at 52.72°S, 73.13°E. Brisbane Z is a mare-flooded crater within Mare Australe. Wrinkle ridges are one of several styles of tectonic deformation present on the Moon, and occur primarily in the maria. Wrinkle ridges are the result of contractional forces, and in the maria, these forces are believed to be from the weight of the basalts extruded onto the surface. The same reasoning explains why wrinkle ridges are sometimes found in mare-flooded craters, where similar contractional forces are present at a smaller scale.

LROC WAC monochrome context mosaic of the wrinkle ridge within Brisbane Z. Today's Featured Image is within the marked box. Image width is 100 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The dramatic wrinkles and folds of this ridge give a sense of the strong forces that shaped this area, disrupting the once-smooth mare surface. In the context image above you can see that this is just the tail of a wrinkle ridge that spans tens of kilometers, crossing over half of Brisbane Z's floor.

Check out more of the wrinkle ridge in the full NAC image!

Related Posts: Wrinkle ridge in Oceanus Procellarum, Wrinkle ridges of northwest Mare Imbrium, Bright ridge near Mons Hansteen


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