Gravitational anomaly (Mascons) creating water-hills
A scenario in the far future -- The moon has been successfully terraformed. All problems have been worked-out, from flinging volatiles into collision course with the moon, up to creating and retaining a stable and breathable atmosphere. With state-of-the art technology, an artificial magnetic field shields the atmosphere from solar winds, and additional shielding retains it despite the moon's low gravity.
While deploying lunar orbiters, astronomers had to take mascons into account. The mascons create fluctuations in the surface gravity. Along with the moon's low gravity, the changes are sufficient to disturb lunar orbiters and kick them out of orbit, if the right orbit was not chosen. Here is a map of gravitational distribution affected by mascons. (View source here, from the GRAIL mission). I did not find information on how noticeable the anomaly would be to an astronaut standing on the surface.
The question -- One (among many) of those anomalies happens to be under the ocean's floor. Given the relatively high anomalies (did not find the exact figure in percentage compared to average), would the anomaly cause some water to "pile-up" and create a "hill" noticeable from some distance? Would that be a significant "curve" of the water's surface to make a tourist attractions for colonists and visitors alike?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/132903. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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