Definition
The motivation for creating the Basin Groups subdivisions was to place 30 pre-Nectarian impact basins into 9 relative age groups. The relative age of the first basin in each group is based on crater densities and superposition relationships, whereas the other basins are included based on weaker grounds. Basin Group 1 has no official age for its base, and the boundary between Basin Group 9 and the Nectarian period is defined by the formation of the Nectaris impact basin.
The age of the Nectaris basin is somewhat contentious, with the most frequently cited numbers placing it at 3.92 Ga, or more infrequently at 3.85 Ga. Recently, however, it has been suggested that the Nectaris basin could be, in fact, much older and might have formed at ~4.1 Ga. Basin Groups are not used as a geologic period on any of the United States Geological Survey lunar geologic maps. Basin Groups 1-9 and the earlier (informal) Cryptic era together make up the totality of the Pre-Nectarian period.
Read more about this topic: Basin Groups
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“One definition of man is “an intelligence served by organs.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“According to our social pyramid, all men who feel displaced racially, culturally, and/or because of economic hardships will turn on those whom they feel they can order and humiliate, usually women, children, and animals—just as they have been ordered and humiliated by those privileged few who are in power. However, this definition does not explain why there are privileged men who behave this way toward women.”
—Ana Castillo (b. 1953)