juliensimon/mercury-craters-herrick

Mercury Crater Database (Herrick et al. 2011)

Credit: NASA/Apollo 8

Part of the Planetary Science Datasets collection on Hugging Face.

The global Mercury impact crater database containing 16,876 craters identified from Mariner 10 and MESSENGER flyby imagery. This catalog provides the most complete inventory of Mercury's cratered surface, with morphological classifications for interior shape, rim geometry, and central structures.

Dataset description

This database was compiled by Robert R. Herrick, Samantha Curran, and Alicia Baer (2011) as the first systematic global catalog of Mercury's impact craters. Using combined Mariner 10 and MESSENGER imagery covering ~98% of Mercury's surface, every identifiable crater was mapped with position, diameter, and morphological attributes. The catalog includes 286 named craters (IAU designations) and 111 rayed craters indicating relatively recent impacts.

Mercury's heavily cratered surface records 4 billion years of bombardment history in the inner solar system. Unlike the Moon, Mercury lacks large-scale volcanic resurfacing (outside the northern plains), making its crater record one of the most complete in the solar system. The transition from simple to complex craters occurs at ~10 km on Mercury — smaller than Mars (6-8 km) but larger than the Moon (~15 km) — reflecting Mercury's higher surface gravity. Central peak craters, peak-ring basins, and multi-ring structures follow well-defined scaling laws that constrain crustal thickness and composition.

This dataset completes the crater quad alongside Lunar Craters, Mars Craters, and Ceres Craters, enabling cross-body crater population studies across the inner solar system.

Schema

Column	Type	Description
crater_id	int64	Unique crater identifier
latitude_deg	float64	Crater center latitude (degrees North)
longitude_deg	float64	Crater center longitude (degrees East, -180 to 180)
diameter_km	float64	Crater rim-to-rim diameter (km)
interior_shape	string	Interior morphology: b=bowl, sh=shallow, ff=flat-floored, x=indeterminate
rim_shape	string	Rim morphology: c=circular, sc=subcircular, t=polygonal/terraced, x=indeterminate
central_structure	string	Central structure: n=none, cp=central peak, mp=multiple peaks, pi=pit, pr=peak ring, mr=multiple rings
rayed	string	Rayed crater flag (y/n)
name	string	IAU crater name (if assigned)
size_class	string	Derived: small (<10 km), medium (10-50), large (50-200), giant (>200)
has_central_structure	bool	Derived: True if central_structure is not none/indeterminate

Quick stats

• 16,876 total craters
• 286 named (IAU designated)
• 111 rayed craters
• 1413 with central structures (peaks, pits, or rings)
• Size distribution: 4,212 small, 10,997 medium, 1,617 large, 50 giant
• Diameter range: 3.5 -- 1572.6 km (median 14.9 km)

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/mercury-craters-herrick", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Size-frequency distribution
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df["diameter_km"].hist(bins=100, log=True)
plt.xlabel("Diameter (km)")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("Mercury Crater Size-Frequency Distribution")
plt.show()

# Map of named craters
named = df[df["name"].notna()]
plt.scatter(named["longitude_deg"], named["latitude_deg"],
            s=named["diameter_km"] / 10, alpha=0.6)
for _, row in named.head(15).iterrows():
    plt.annotate(row["name"], (row["longitude_deg"], row["latitude_deg"]),
                 fontsize=6, alpha=0.7)
plt.xlabel("Longitude (°E)")
plt.ylabel("Latitude (°N)")
plt.title("Named Mercury Craters")
plt.show()

# Morphology breakdown
print(df["central_structure"].value_counts())
print(f"Rayed craters: {len(df[df['rayed'] == 'y'])}")

Data source

Herrick, R.R., Curran, S., and Baer, A. (2011), A Mariner/MESSENGER global catalog of mercurian craters. Icarus, 215(1), 452-454. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2011.06.021

Related datasets

• Lunar Craters (Robbins 2019) — 2M+ Moon craters
• Mars Craters (Robbins & Hynek 2012) — 384K+ Mars craters
• Ceres Craters (Dawn) — 44K Ceres craters
• IAU Planetary Nomenclature — Named features across all bodies

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the dataset page and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐ to the space-datasets repo.

Citation

@dataset{mercury_craters_herrick,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {Mercury Crater Database (Herrick et al. 2011)},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/mercury-craters-herrick},
  note = {Based on Herrick, Curran & Baer (2011) via University of Alaska}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0