BARATOUX , David

Ages of geological units of planetary bodies are determined from impact crater counts on their surface. These ages are model-dependent, and several models largely used in the community assume a constant production function and a constant cratering rate over the last 3 Ga. We have mapped the population of small impact craters (>200 m in...

This presentation will focus on recent efforts to develop space and planetary sciences in Africa, particularly work on African impact structures and support for NASA space missions (New Horizons, Lucy) to explore asteroids through stellar occultation campaigns conducted in Senegal.

We detected more than 1000 crater structures in the Western Egyptian Desert, distributed over 40000 km2, among which 62 were studied on the field. Two hypotheses are proposed for their origin: hydrothermal vent complexes or impact craters generated by a rubble-pile asteroid.

Journal of African Earth Sciences, 46, pp. 281-299 (2006)

International audience