After the crater's initial Noachian-age formation and into the Hesperian period, weathering and sediment transport is thought to have degraded Denning's rim and infilled its basin.

This plains unit is interpreted to comprise eolian materials infilling lower areas in the cratered bedrock.

Lava emerged from these extensional faults, forming arcuate sets of volcanic material that became ridges as the less competent country rock was weathered away over time.

The crater's floor is flat (appearing totally smooth at resolutions consistent with NASA's THEMIS instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) with no apparent central peak.

[2] The neighborhood of Denning Crater was first mapped using orbital data in 1980 as part of an initiative by the United States Geological Survey Astrobiology Center.

[3] Also under purview of the USGS, a later map of the greater region was published by Ronald Greeley and John Guest in 1987,[4] and then globally by Kenneth Tanaka and co-workers in 2014.

[5] A 2007 study by Californian and Virginian researchers reported the completion of a systematic global survey of alluvial fans present within Martian impact craters using THEMIS as its dataset.