README file for Release 3 of the Venus Crater Database ("release3.*")

This is the 3rd release of a database of Venusian craters. You have your choice of 4 file formats: StarOffice, Applix, Excel, or tab-delimited text. The first row gives detailed column headings, and the third row gives symbols for the column headings. There is an accompanying document called "entries.*" that gives details on the entries in the database.

Many people have had input into this database at one time or another and the resulting product has benefited from their input. Among them are: Roger Phillips, Buck Sharpton, Noam Izenberg, Maribeth Price, Nori Namiki, Bob Grimm, Nick Stacy, Gerry Schaber, Jeff Plaut, and Sasha Basilevsky.

For further information, please contact the LPI RPIF at [email protected].

Appropriate References

This version of the database is updated from the one accompanying the chapter in the Venus II book entitled "Morphology and Morphometry of Impact Craters", by Robert R. Herrick, Virgil L. Sharpton, Michael C. Malin, Suzanne N. Lyons, and Kimberly Feely (1997, U. of Arizona Press, eds. S. W. Bougher, D. M. Hunten, and R. J. Phillips, pp. 1015-1046). That should be the reference if you use the database for your research.

The original version of the database (release 1) was used for an article by Robert R. Herrick and Roger J. Phillips (1994, Implications of a global survey of Venusian impact craters, Icarus, v. 111, 387-416).

The sheet dealing with multiple impacts is an updated version of that which appears in: Herrick, Robert R., and Roger J. Phillips, 1994, Effects of the Venusian atmsophere on incoming meteoroids and the impact crater population, Icarus, v. 112, 253-281.

Other Available Crater Databases for Venus

This does not represent the only database of impact craters for Venus. Others are found in the following:

For another general database of craters, see Schaber et al. (1992, JGR, v. 97, 13,257). A continuously updated version of that database can be found at the USGS Astrogeology Branch web site, http://astrogeology.usgs.gov.

A more detailed listing of parabolic features is in Campbell et al. (1992, JGR, v. 97, 16,249). The parabolic features listed in our database are a subset of those in Campbell et al. We have only included those that are undisputable parabolic features, that are obviously related to the crater, and that show up clearly in the SAR imagery.

A database of emissivity features associated with craters can be found at Lawson and Plaut (1994, LPSC XXV, 781-782).

Another compilation of parabolic features is in Schaller and Melosh (1998, Icarus, v. 131, 123-127).

Another data set of ring spacing is Alexopoulos and McKinnon (1994, Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution, GSA Spec. Paper 293, p. 29). Their measurements are quite similar to ours where the databases overlap, but they have classified many craters as peak ring craters that we classified as multiple peaks.

A data set of craters on tessera terrain can be found in Gilmore et al. (1997, JGR, v. 102, 13,357). That paper has very specific guidelines for defining the terrain for a crater location that involve classifying only the terrain superposed by the rim of the crater. In the database I present here the terrain classification is a description of the prominent terrain type in the general area surrounding the crater.

A very different view from mine of volcanic embayment of craters is presented in Collins et al. (1999, JGR, v. 104, 24,121), and that paper contains their database of volcanically embayed craters.