Geological Chronicle
Gauss lies near the northeastern limb of the Moon’s near side. From Earth it appears considerably foreshortened, and its visibility is affected by libration. Riemann lies northeast, closer to the limb; Hahn and Berosus are southwest, and Seneca is almost directly south.
Gauss is a walled plain, a formation with a diameter of at least 110 kilometers, a somewhat sunken floor and little or no central massif. Its rim is better formed in the north, with some terracing along the northwest inner walls; those walls appear slumped in the northeast, while the southern rim is somewhat more eroded.
The interior is fairly flat in places, with several craters in the southern half and a central mountain offset from the center. An infrared spectrum of pure crystalline plagioclase has been identified on and around the peak. Clefts mark the eastern and northwestern floor edges; uneven southern rims and northern rises give the floor the appearance of a ridge line running north to south.