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Croft et al. 1979
Croft, S.K., Kieffer, S.W. and Ahrens, T.J. (1979). Low-velocity impact craters in ice and ice-saturated sand with implications for Martian crater count ages. Journal of Geophysical Research 84: doi: 10.1029/JB080i014p08023. issn: 0148-0227.

We produced a series of decimeter-sized impact craters in blocks of ice near 0 ¿C and -70 ¿C and in ice-saturated sand near -70 ¿C as a preliminary investigation of cratering in materials analogous to those found on Mars and the outer solar system satellites. The projectiles used where standard 0.22 and 0.30 caliber bullets fired at velocities between 0.3 and 1.6 km/s, with kinetic energies at impact between 109 and 4¿1010 ergs. Crater diameters in the ice-saturated sand were ~2 times larger than craters in the same energy and velocity range in competent blocks of granite, basalt and cement. Craters in ice were ~3 times larger. If this dependence of crater size on strength persists to large hypervelocity impact craters, then surfaces of geologic units composed of ice or ice-saturated soil would have greater crater count ages than rocky survaces with identical influx histories. The magnitude of the correction to crater counts required by this strength effect is comparable to the corrections required by variations in impact velocity and surface gravity used in determining relative interplanetary chronologies. The relative sizes of craters in ice and ice-saturated sand imply that the tensile strength of ice-saturated sand is a strong inverse function of temperature. If this is true, then Martian impact crater energy versus diameter scaling may also be a function of latitude.

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Journal of Geophysical Research
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