Impact Cratering Across the Solar System

Dr. Gordon “Oz” Osinski is a Professor and the NSERC/MDA/CSA/CEMI Industrial Research Chair in Earth and Space Exploration in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario (Western), Canada. He holds a PhD from the University of New Brunswick (2004) and a BSc (Hons) from the University of St. Andrews (1999), Scotland, both in Geology. Dr. Osinski’s research interests focus is on understanding impact cratering as a planetary geological process, on the Earth, Moon and Mars. He has conducted fieldwork at dozens of impact craters on four continents over the past 20 years. He has made substantial contributions to understanding the impact cratering process, including shock melting and metamorphism, impact ejecta emplacement, complex crater formation, and impact-generated hydrothermal systems. Dr. Osinski has published over 185 papers in peer-reviewed journals and special papers and has given over 110 conference presentations. He has received numerous awards for this research, including the Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society (2009), the Young Scientist Medal of the Mineralogical Association of Canada (2015), and the Florence Bucke Award from Western (2015). Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious W. W. Hutchison Medal of the Geological Association of Canada and was named a Faculty Scholar at Western, both in 2018. Dr. Osinski is also the lead for Impact Earth, a unique initiative that seels to engage researchers and the public alike in the study of meteorite impacts, fireballs and meteorites. Dr. Catherine Neish is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. She is an expert in the use of remote sensing observations to study the geology of planetary surfaces, with a particular emphasis on impact cratering and volcanism. Dr. Neish obtained her graduate training in planetary sciences at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona (2008). She then held two postdoctoral research positions at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as well as an Assistant Professorship at the Florida Institute of Technology. To date, Dr. Neish has published over 55 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including 19 as first author, and wrote an invited book chapter on planetary radar for the Encyclopedia of the Solar System (3rd Edition). Dr. Neish is involved in NASA spacecraft missions as a Co-Investigator, including Cassini, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Dragonfly. She has been awarded the Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Science from the American Geophysical Union, for significant contributions to planetary science from a young scientist (2014), an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement (2015), and an Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Science (2017).

1. Overview of the Impact Cratering Process
2. Crater morphology and morphometry
3. Impact ejecta deposits
4. Effects of impacts on target geology
5. Impactites - The products of impact
6. Impacts into atmospheres
7. Crater chronology
8. Role of impacts in the origin and evolution of life
9. Role of impacts in planetary evolution
10. Synthesis and Outlook