Victoria quadrangle

[1] As is common with most of the imaged portions of Mercury, the Victoria quadrangle is dominated by basins and large craters, with plains materials occupying the areas between them.

A large gap in coverage between the incoming and outgoing images appears as a northeast-trending diagonal blank strip on the base map.

No images provide a vertical view; in fact, the smallest angle between the planetary surface normal and the camera axis is about 50°.

The high obliquity of the images, the wide range in sun-elevation angles, and the complete transection of the quadrangle by the gap in coverage greatly hamper geologic mapping.

The MESSENGER spacecraft mapped all of Mercury's quadrangles at much greater detail than that of Mariner 10, filling the large photographic gap discussed above.

Prominent features such as Praxiteles, Stravinsky, Derzhavin, and Wren craters that were only poorly imaged by Mariner 10 were shown in great detail by MESSENGER.

In addition, central peak, floor, rim, and ejecta materials related to the numerous craters and basins larger than about 20 km in diameter are mapped.

About half of the intercrater area consists of material characterized by a very high density of small, mostly degraded craters, and an irregular to rough surface.

The smooth plains unit probably includes materials of a wide range in age, but the exposed areas are too small to test this possibility quantitatively.

Strom and others[4] interpreted most of these features to be surface expressions of thrust faults, and we can find no evidence within the Victoria quadrangle not already considered in their discussion.

The stresses responsible for the elongate ridges and scarps must have occurred after the end of the primordial bombardment and after emplacement of the intermediate plains unit.

On the floors of some craters, such as Gluck, scarps apparently offset material mapped as smooth plains, but the exposures are so small that this interpretation could easily be challenged.