Tolstoj (crater)

Tolstoy is a large, very old impact crater. -15 On the Latitude and 165 longitude of the planet Mercury is located. He was named after Leo Tolstoy. The albedo feature Solitudo Maia seems to be associated with this crater.

The impact that caused the Tolstoy Basin, occurred very early on in the history of Mercury. Two jigsaw broken rings with an estimated diameter of 356 km and 510 km comprise the structure, but are not very pronounced on the north and north-east side; a third incomplete ring with a diameter of 466 km occurs on the south side. Scattered patches of dark albedo are outside the innermost ring. The central part of the basin is covered with a uniform level material. Hapke and others have assumed that the dark albedo materials that are connected to the edges of Tolstoy Basin, significantly less distinct than the surrounding terrain, while the levels that are present in the basin, have a much redder color.

Despite Tolstoy's advanced age and the bay formation of his older inner planes, it was a well-defined and surprisingly well-preserved, radial ejecta blanket by about two-thirds of its circumference. The ejecta tends to block formation and is only weakly linearly between the inner and outer rings. Circular line formations with a slightly swirl -like patterns can be best seen on the southwest side of Tolstoy. The unusual rectilinear pattern of ejecta points to the fact that:

• Control of the ejecta pattern of structures that existed before the basin formation,
• Preferred fires during the structural development of the originally symmetric ejecta blanket of the plane material inside the crater or
• Formation of Tolstoy by an oblique impact from the northwest, which caused an ejecta blanket with bilateral symmetry and little or no impact uprange. An analysis of stereo photographs of Tolstoy ejecta northeast of the crater leads to the assumption that this filing was upwarped to a greater height position relative to the surrounding plains.