The Noachis-Sabaea region in the southern highlands preserves some of the oldest Martian crust. It records deformation by both endogenic and exogenic processes. This deformation includes giant impacts and their impact stresses, which could have resulted in both the reactivation and modification of pre-impact tectonic structures, in addition to impact-generated tectonic structures. There are also widespread extensional and compressional tectonic structures, which were formed due to endogenic processes. We have produced the first detailed morphostructural map of the Noachis-Sabaea region, which details the characteristics and spatial arrangements of structures in the region, forms the basis for making inferences about Noachian-Hesperian crustal activity, and provides information for further studies regarding the reconstruction of the evolutional history of the region.

One of the long-standing enigmas for lunar tectonic-thermal evolution is the spatiotemporal association of contractional wrinkle ridges and basaltic volcanism in a compressional regime. Here, we show that most of the 30 investigated volcanic (eruptive) centers are linked to contractional wrinkle ridges developed above preexisting basin basement-involved ring/rim normal faults. Based on the tectonic patterns associated with the basin formation and mass loading and considering that during the subsequent compression the stress was not purely isotropic, we hypothesize that tectonic inversion produced not only thrust faults but also reactivated structures with strike-slip and even extensional components, thus providing a valid mechanism for magma transport through fault planes during ridge faulting and folding of basaltic layers. Our findings suggest that lunar syn-tectonic mare emplacement along reactivated inherited faults provides important records of basin-scale structure-involved volcanism, which is more complex than previously considered.