Lunar Mare Areas
There are eight well known lunar maria, but about two dozen smaller maria, laci, sinii and other small patches of mare basalt. Jim Whitford-Stark, in a paper published in 1982, reported on the areas of all the lunar maria. Here is his list of areas and his map of the distribution of these maria and dark patches. Note that the four entries with an asterisk (*) are not included in the total area because they are already included in the area for the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Mare depths are more poorly known than mare areas, but the best estimates are presented in the Lunar Basins spreadsheet.
|
Name |
Area (km 2) |
|
Procellarum, Oceanus |
1,692,000 |
|
Imbrium, Mare |
1,130,000 |
|
Tranquillitatis, Mare |
436,000 |
|
Serenitatis, Mare |
353,400 |
|
Frigoris, Mare |
320,000 |
|
Australe, Mare |
319,000 |
|
Crisium, Mare |
228,000 |
|
Fecunditatis, Mare |
220,000 |
|
South Pole-Aitken, Basin |
190,725 |
|
Insularum, Mare |
110,200 |
|
Humorum, Mare |
84,500 |
|
Nectaris, Mare |
84,100 |
|
Orientale, Basin |
69,000 |
|
Marginis, Mare |
64,900 |
|
Undarum & Spumans, Maria |
55,000 |
|
Smythii, Mare |
51,950 |
|
Somniorum, Lacus |
47,300 |
|
Aestuum, Sinus |
39,600 |
|
Ingenii, Mare* |
36,000 |
|
Humboldtianum |
35,475 |
|
Mortis, Lacus |
34,000 |
|
Vaporum, Mare |
32,400 |
|
Poincare, Basin* |
23,750 |
|
Epidermiarum, Palus |
21,150 |
|
Moscoviense, Mare |
19,600 |
|
Apollo, Basin* |
18,300 |
|
Medii, Sinus |
18,000 |
|
Somnii, Palus |
17,500 |
|
Tsiolkovsky-Stark, Basin |
12,600 |
|
Putredinis, Palus |
8.350 |
|
Anguis, Mare |
8,150 |
|
Mendel-Rydberg, Basin |
2,900 |
|
Freundlich-Sharanov, Basin |
1,920 |
|
Schrodinger, Basin* |
1,325 |
|
TOTAL |
5,708,410 |
J. L..Whitford-Stark (1982) A Preliminary Analysis of Lunar Extra-Mare Basalts: Distribution, Compositions, Ages, Volumes, and Eruption Styles. The Moon and Planets 26, 323-338.