Searching for deep-seated thrust faults on the moon

The lunar maria are large expanses of basalt that infill antecedent impact
basins and show evidence for post-emplacement deformation. Landforms
within many of these basins suggest a period of compressive tectonics,
although the mechanism for their formation remains an open question.
Previous work for Mare Crisium demonstrated that basin-circumferential
wrinkle ridges, which typically demarcate the inner edge of an annulus of
elevated terrain, are the result of deep-seated thrust faults that
preferentially form along the boundary of an elevated, superisostatic
portion of mantle and a thick, subisostatic collar of crustal material.
Here, we show that a similar fault architecture exists for several other
mascon-bearing basins, including Maria Serenititis, Nectaris, Moscoviense,
and, to a lesser degree, Humorum and Imbrium. These deeply penetrating
basin-circumferential thrust faults, as for Mare Crisium, form a (partial)
outward-dipping ring-fault system that bounds the elevated mantle plug
beneath each basin as a geometric consequence of mascon evolution. If this
geometric arrangement is unique to the Moon, then some characteristic(s)
of lunar mascon evolution enables the formation of such mascon-bounding
faults. Despite the ubiquitous nature of mascon-bound thrust ring faults
at several lunar basins, the prevalence of such structures at mascon
basins on other terrestrial worlds remains an open question.