The findings are reported in a paper led by Smithsonian scientist Thomas Watters, "Extension and contraction within volcanically buried impact craters and basins on Mercury," published in the December issue of the journal Geology.
The surface of Mercury is covered with deformational landforms that formed by faulting in response to horizontal contraction or shortening as the planet's interior cooled and surface area shrank, causing blocks of crustal material to be pushed together.
Contraction from cooling of Mercury's interior has been so dominant that extensional landforms caused by fault formation in response to horizontal stretching and pulling apart of crustal material had not been previously documented outside of the interiors of a few large impact basins.
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