Origin of the Lunar Craters and Maria

Abstract

IF Dr. van Dorn is right in concluding that the energies of meteor impacts necessary to produce lunar craters of given size are actually about 100 times larger than those postulated by Baldwin, the seismic arguments put forward in my letter of January 17 would be correspondingly strengthened; for the available estimates of the largest energies of terrestrial earthquakes range between 10²³ and 10²⁷ ergs, with 10²⁵ ergs as a fair average (Gutenberg, 1958).