Compositional and lithological diversity among brecciated lunar meteorites of intermediate iron concentration

Korotev, R. L.; Zeigler, R. A.; Jolliff, Bradley L.; Irving, A. J.; Bunch, T. E.

doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2009.tb01223.x

Cited by 93 publications

(232 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Lunar meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 2977 is an olivine-gabbro cumulate that is paired with lunar meteorite NWA 773 (48), which contains clasts of the same olivine-gabbro cumulate lithology (49,50). The crystallization age of the olivine-gabbro cumulate in NWA 773 is 2.86 Ga (51), and no trapped solar wind was detected in this lithology, indicating a very limited residence time at the lunar surface (52).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nominally hydrous magmatism on the Moon

McCubbin

Steele

Hauri

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

275

185

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For the past 40 years, the Moon has been described as nearly devoid of indigenous water; however, evidence for water both on the lunar surface and within the lunar interior have recently emerged, calling into question this long-standing lunar dogma. In the present study, hydroxyl (as well as fluoride and chloride) was analyzed by secondary ion mass spectrometry in apatite [Ca 5 ðPO 4 Þ 3 ðF,Cl,OHÞ] from three different lunar samples in order to obtain quantitative constraints on the abundance of water in the lunar interior. This work confirms that hundreds to thousands of ppm water (of the structural form hydroxyl) is present in apatite from the Moon. Moreover, two of the studied samples likely had water preserved from magmatic processes, which would qualify the water as being indigenous to the Moon. The presence of hydroxyl in apatite from a number of different types of lunar rocks indicates that water may be ubiquitous within the lunar interior, potentially as early as the time of lunar formation. The water contents analyzed for the lunar apatite indicate minimum water contents of their lunar source region to range from 64 ppb to 5 ppm H 2 O. This lower limit range of water contents is at least two orders of magnitude greater than the previously reported value for the bulk Moon, and the actual source region water contents could be significantly higher. O ne of the scientific discoveries resulting from the Apollo missions was the pervasive waterless nature of the Moon and its rocks. The initial studies of the returned samples were pristine and showed no evidence of aqueous alteration, and water analyses were below detection limits. Moreover, hydrous phases were absent from the lunar rocks aside from a few unconfirmed reports of possible amphibole grains (1), which are now considered by many to represent either misidentifications or terrestrial contamination (as summarized by ref. 2). The subsequent forty years of lunar sample analysis have only supported and strengthened the idea that indigenous water was nearly absent from the Moon's interior. In fact, this conclusion has been incorporated into many petrologic and geophysical models constructed to aid in our understanding of lunar formation and lunar geology (3-11). The bulk water content of the Moon was recently estimated to be less than 1 ppb (11), which would make the Moon at least six orders of magnitude drier than the interiors of Earth (12, 13) and Mars (14). This extremely low water content is in keeping with the pervasive volatile-element depletion signature recorded in all lunar materials, because hydrogen is the most volatile of the elements. The exact cause for this volatile-element depletion is still under question; however, many have argued that it stems from the high temperatures associated with the Moon-forming giant-impact event at ∼4.5 Ga (i.e., refs. 3,8,15,and 16).Facilitated by advancements in analytical detection sensitivities for water, several recent discoveries have indicated that the story of water on the Moon is far from complete. Evi...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nominally hydrous magmatism on the Moon

McCubbin

Steele

Hauri

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

275

185

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In contrast, lunar meteorites are derived from almost random locations of the lunar surface, and some would have come from the regions unsampled by the lunar missions. The number of named lunar meteorite stones listed in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database is 130 (Meteoritical Society, 2010), which represents at most 65 meteorites (Korotev et al, 2009). On balance, roughly half of them may have come from the farside of the moon since current cratering rates on the nearside and farside are similar (Gallant et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The variety of lithologies in the Yamato-86032 lunar meteorite: Implications for formation processes of the lunar crust

Yamaguchi

Karouji

Takeda

et al. 2010

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

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“…The little KREEP (K-potassium, REE-rare earth elements, P-phosphorus) content of NWA 4884 suggests a source region distant from the Procellarum KREEP Terrane where mare basalt mixed with feldspathic regolith (Korotev et al, 2009). Regolith samples as the uniform mixtures produced by continuous impacts, would be able to compare with chemical maps with a spatial resolution of ~km obtained from remote sensing data (Gillis et al, 2004).…”

Section: Compositions and Possible Sources Of Nwa 4884mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Determining their source regions and studying the composition and chronology of the sampled lava flow will contribute to our understanding of the magmatic evolution and thermal history in the lunar mantle. This work utilizes chemical information of lunar meteorite NWA 4884 (Korotev et al, 2009) and spectroscopic compositional data of basalt units (Lawrence et al, 2002;Lucey et al, 2000), to derive the potential source regions of NWA 4884.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%