Constraining the Thickness of Polar Ice Deposits on Mercury Using the Mercury Laser Altimeter and Small Craters in Permanently Shadowed Regions

Abstract: Radar-bright deposits at the poles of Mercury are located in permanently shadowed regions, which pro- vide thermally stable environments for hosting and retaining water ice on the surface or in the near sub- surface for geologic timescales. While the areal distribution of these radar-bright deposits is well characterized, their thickness, and thus their total mass and volume, remain poorly constrained. Here we derive thickness estimates for selected water-ice deposits using small, simple crat…