Large-Scale Roughness Properties of the Lunar Poles

Michael Kenneth Barker

North Polar Large-Area DEMs

(See this page for the analogous set of products for the south pole.)

All TIF files are cloud-optimized GeoTiffs (COGs) with north polar stereographic X/Y coordinates in meters and in the MOON_ME reference frame of the JPL DE421 ephemeris.

Filename format: PREFIX_LAT_PIX_STEMS.TIF

where: PREFIX gives the data type (LDEM, LDEC, LDSM, LDRM, or LPSR), LAT gives the latitude limit (80N, 83N, 75N or 60N), PIX gives the pixel scale in meters per pixel (e.g., 10MPP, 20MPP, 30MPP, 40MPP, 60MPP, etc.), and STEMS is an additional identifier (e.g., ADJ, ADJ_ERR, ADJ_HILL, ADJ_EFFRES, ADJ_ROUGH_100M, etc.).

For example, these are the filenames for the 20 meters/pixel DEM products which cover 80 - 90 deg North:

LDEC_80N_20MPP_ADJ.TIF - LOLA Digital Elevation Counts (LDEC, number of LOLA spots per pixel)
LDEM_80N_20MPP_ADJ.TIF - LOLA Digital Elevation Model (LDEM) giving surface height (in meters)
LDEM_80N_20MPP_ADJ_EFFRES.TIF - LDEM effective resolution (in meters)
LDEM_80N_20MPP_ADJ_ERR.TIF - LDEM surface height error (in meters)
LDEM_80N_20MPP_ADJ_HILL.TIF - LDEM hillshade (45 deg altitude, 45 deg azimuth)
LDSM_80N_20MPP_ADJ.TIF - LOLA Digital Slope Map (LDSM, in degrees)
LDSM_80N_20MPP_ADJ_ERR.TIF - LDSM slope error (in degrees)

Topographic products

Roughness products

LDRM_80N_*MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_*M.TIF - LOLA Digital Roughness Map (LDRM, in meters). This is the spread of height residuals of individual LOLA spots around a plane fit to the LDEM within a circular window whose diameter is equal to a baseline of *M meters.
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_100M.TIF - 610M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_200M.TIF - 601M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_400M.TIF - 607M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_800M.TIF - 602M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_1600M.TIF - 600M

LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_100M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_200M.TIF - 1.4M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_400M.TIF - 1.4M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_800M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_1600M.TIF - 1.5M

LDRM_80N_*MPP_ADJ_SLP_*M.TIF - The corresponding slope (in degrees) of the plane fit for a baseline of *M meters.
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_SLP_100M.TIF - 590M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_SLP_200M.TIF - 584M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_SLP_400M.TIF - 570M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_SLP_800M.TIF - 553M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_SLP_1600M.TIF - 534M

LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_SLP_100M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_SLP_200M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_SLP_400M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_SLP_800M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_SLP_1600M.TIF - 1.5M

LDRM_80N_*MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_RGB.TIF - Color-composite RGB image of multi-baseline roughness for baselines of 50 - 1000 m. Note that the 50-m baseline roughness is taken from the LOLA single-shot roughness product (LDRM_40N_1000M_NN.IMG) already archived on the PDS.
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_RGB.TIF - 4.3M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_ROUGH_RGB.TIF - 1.7G

LDRM_80N_*MPP_ADJ_RMSD_*M.TIF - RMS height deviation (in meters) between a central point and surrounding annulus with diameter equal to the baseline of *M meters.
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_RMSD_100M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_RMSD_200M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_RMSD_400M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_RMSD_800M.TIF - 1.5M
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_RMSD_1600M.TIF - 1.5M

LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_RMSD_100M.TIF - 588M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_RMSD_200M.TIF - 580M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_RMSD_400M.TIF - 565M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_RMSD_800M.TIF - 543M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_RMSD_1600M.TIF - 516M

LDRM_80N_*MPP_ADJ_H.TIF - Hurst exponent.
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_H.TIF - 1.4M
LDRM_80N_50MPP_ADJ_H.TIF - 558M

LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_CLASS.TIF - 438K - K-means class based on the multi-baseline roughness spectrum.
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_AVGROUGH.TIF - 1.7M - Average standardized roughness (sigma) over all baselines.
LDRM_80N_1000MPP_ADJ_SPSLP.TIF - 1.7M - Roughness spectral slope (sigma/km) over all baselines.

Permanently Shadowed Region (PSR) products

LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ.TIF - 123M - PSR map

All PSRs (N=265881)

LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ.CSV - 154M - Comma-separated value table
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ.DBF - 62M - Attribute database
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ.PRJ - 367 - Projection
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ.SHP - 113M - Shapefile
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ.SHX - 2.1M - Shape index

Only PSRs with area > 1 km2 (N=2486)

LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ_1km2.CSV - 32M - Comma-separated value table
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ_1km2.DBF - 586K - Attribute database
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ_1km2.PRJ - 367 - Projection
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ_1km2.SHP - 23M - Shapefile
LPSR_80N_20MPP_ADJ_1km2.SHX - 20K - Shape index

Point clouds of individual spots

File format is binary double precision, 4 columns: X,Y,Z,ID where X,Y are the stereographic coordinates (in meters), Z is the surface height (in meters) and ID is the LOLA RDR ID.

LDEM_80N_ADJ.XYZI - 5G - For products with 20MPP or LDRM in the filename.
LDEM_60N_ADJ.XYZI - 21G - For all other products.

Data Usage Policy

Please cite this paper when using these products:

Barker, M. K., Mazarico, E., Neumann, G. A., Smith, D. E., Zuber, M. T., Head, J. W., Sun, X., 2025, "Large-Scale Roughness Properties of the Lunar North and South Polar Regions as Measured by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA)," Planetary Science Journal, accepted. https://doi.org/10.60903/gsfcpgda-lola-poles

Product Keywords

Moon LOLA roughness topography PSR Lunar

NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Laboratory

Goddard Space Flight Center