Geological Chronicle
Cuvier is an impact crater on the southern part of the Moon's near side, measuring 77.3 kilometers in diameter and attached to the east-southeast rim of the unusually shaped formation Heraclitus. To the northeast lies the crater Clairaut. Subsequent impacts have worn and eroded its rim, leaving an outer wall that has been rounded and diminished in prominence. Where the rim is shared with Heraclitus, a slight inward bulge produces a short section where the wall appears slightly flatter.
A notable pair of craters lies across the northern rim, while two other smaller craters lie along the east and south rims, and several small craterlets mark the rim to the north-northwest. Within the wall, the level and nearly featureless interior floor appears largely resurfaced. It lacks the low albedo characteristic of lunar maria, matching the hue of the surrounding terrain and bearing faint traces of ray material from elsewhere.
The crater is named for French natural scientist and paleontologist Georges Cuvier, the creator of comparative anatomy. German astronomer J. H. von Mädler included the name in his nineteenth-century lunar nomenclature, and the International Astronomical Union formally adopted the designation in 1935.