Geological Chronicle
Goldschmidt lies on the northern part of the Moon’s near side. It appears oval because of foreshortening, although its rim is relatively circular. Barrow nearly touches the southeast rim, and a rugged rise about 30 km across separates the two formations. Epigenes lies farther south.
Goldschmidt is a walled plain, a formation defined by a diameter of at least 110 kilometers, a somewhat sunken floor and little or no central massif. The outer rim is heavily eroded and irregular, with small impacts cutting into the inner wall. Much of the west rim no longer exists because Anaxagoras and the smaller Anaxagoras A overlap it; ejecta from these formations covers the western third of Goldschmidt’s floor.
The remaining floor is nearly level and flat, most likely resurfaced by lava flows, but tiny craterlets now mark its surface. Goldschmidt A is the most prominent of them. Linear troughs in the southern rim are associated with ejecta from the formation of the Imbrium basin.
Goldschmidt takes its name from Hermann Goldschmidt, a French astronomer of German origin who discovered asteroid (21) Lutetia.