William Hartmann

2011 Research Report

My PSI research is now split into two areas:  (1) Refining techniques for using the populations of impact craters to interpret the age, geologic processes, and geologic history of Martian formations. This is supported by a new MDAP grant that started in 2010.  (2)  Reviewing evidence about  the proposed  solar-system-wide cataclysm 3.9 Gy ago,  in which I’ve proposed that the evidence isn’t as strong or consistent as is thought by most people in the field.

                  The crater related work has two parts.  (1) I participate with workshop team at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, focussing on problems of cratering on Mars, such as the initial size distribution of the craters and the effects of secondaries.  The team includes Olga Popova (Russia, team co-leader with me), Cathy Quantin (France), Stephanie Werner (Norway), Ernst Hauber (Germany), and me.  I attended a week-long workshop in May, 2011, at ISSI on these subjects.  Papers are in preparation. 

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                  (2)  I completed a draft of a major paper regarding glaciation and climate change on Mars, with French Co-authors Veronique Ansan, Nicolas Mangold, and Francois Forget, and with Dan Berman (PSI).  I combined the May trip to ISSI with a week of meetings with Ansan, Mangold, and Forget at University of Nantes.  I followed up with the same team during the DPS meeting in Nantes in October, 2011.  Combining of the various meeting into single trips was a good way to save grant funding.  The paper focuses on a variety of ice-related landforms in the Martian crater “Greg,”  east of Hellas.  In 2011, a complete draft of the paper was circulated to the co-authors.  Figure 1 shows a result from that paper. 

                  In late 2011 I signed up for the Feb. 2012 conference on Early Bombardment in the Solar System, and pursued research on the cratering rate on the moon during the period before ~3.8 Gy ago, measuring craters in the Imbrium impact basin that post-date basin formation, but predate the surface lava flows of Mare Imbrium.  I am contemplating a new proposal to work on these topics. 

                  I am also operating in partial retirement “emeritus” mode.  On my own time I have continued research on historical and other projects.  A book MS on the earliest European explorations into the American southwest, in the 1500s, has attracted interest from the University of Arizona Pre

Publications

Papers

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Popova, Olga, J. Borovička, W. K. Hartmann, P. Spurný, E. Gnos, I. Nemtchinov, J. Trigo-Todriguea (2011) Very Low Strengths of Interplanetary Meteoroids and Small Asteroids, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 46, 1525-1550. 

Books

My popular-level book, Travelers’ Guide to Mars, originally published in 2003 in New York, was re-published in an updated Spanish addition from Akal Publishers in Madrid, Spain

Abstracts 

Berman, D. C., W.K. Hartmann, and M.R. Balme (2011). Small Impact Crater Statistics: A Tool for Analysis of Geologic Processes in Martian Volatile-Rich Surfaces. LPSC 42, 1513.

Bouvier, A., M. Wadhwa, R.L. Korotev, and W.K. Hartmann (2011). U-Pb Chronology of Two Lunar Impact Melt Breccias. Meteor. & Planet. Sci. Supp., #5185.

Hartmann, W.K., V. Ansan, N. Mangold, F. Forget, and D.C. Berman (2011). Obliquity-related ice deposition in the glaciated Martian crater Greg, and progress on crater chronometry. EPSC Abstracts 6, EPSC-DPS2011-1394

Hartmann, W.K., C.A. Goodrich, D.P. O'Brien, P. Michel, S.J. Weidenschilling, and M.V. Sykes (2011). Breakup and Reassembly of the Ureilite Parent Body, Formation of 2008 TC3/Almahata Sitta, and Delivery of Ureilites to Earth. LPSC 42, 1360.

Popova, O., J. Borovicka, W.K. Hartmann, P. Spurny, E. Gnos, I. Nemtchinov, and J.M. Trigo-Rodriguez (2011). Very low strength of interplanetary meteoroids and small asteroids. EPSC Abstracts 6,  EPSC-DPS2011-1262.

Quantin, C., W.K. Hartmann, S.C. Werner, and O. Popova (2011). Young Martian crater Gratteri and its secondary field. EPSC Abstracts 6, EPSC-DPS2011-1292.

Trey, B., C. Quantin,  W.K. Hartmann, and P. Allemand (2011). Size frequency distribution of small craters on the Moon. EPSC Abstracts 6, EPSC-DPS2011-808.