BEIJING: The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has released the most detailed geological map of the Moon to date.
The map, called The Geological Atlas of the Lunar Globe (created by more than 100 researchers over more than a decade), includes a total of 12,341 craters, 81 basins and 17 rock types, including other basic geological information. This map was created at a scale of 1:2,500,000.
Russ Mitchell from Beijing-based CAS Institute of Geology and Geophysics said that every question in geology starts with looking at a geological map. This new map is for the entire world.
CAS has also introduced a book called Map Quadrangles of the Geologic Atlas of the Moon, which contains 30 sector diagrams that together form a picture of the total Moon.
“Current maps of the Moon date back to the 1960s and 70s,” said co-author Jianzhong Liu, a geochemist from the CAS Institute of Geochemistry. The US Geological Survey created several geological maps of the Moon using data from the Apollo missions.
