Gravitational search for cryptovolcanism on the Moon: Evidence for large volumes of early igneous activity

Sori, Michael M.; Zuber, M. T.; Head, J. W.; Kiefer, W. S.

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2016.02.009

Cited by 30 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Sills are inferred beneath floor-fractured craters, and similar intrusions could conceivably exist even in craters lacking fractures as well as in the surrounding crust (Jozwiak et al, 2012(Jozwiak et al, , 2015. Cryptomaria are a form of hidden extrusive eruption that may contribute to the gravity on a range of scales Head, 2015a, 2015b;Sori et al, 2016).…”

Section: Analysis Of the Inversion Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-scale density variations in the lunar crust revealed by GRAIL

Jansen

Andrews-Hanna

et al. 2017

Icarus

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Data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission have revealed that ~98% of the power of the gravity signal of the Moon at high spherical harmonic degrees correlates with the topography. The remaining 2% of the signal, which cannot be explained by topography, contains information about density variations within the crust. These high-degree Bouguer gravity anomalies are likely caused by small-scale (10's of km) shallow density variations. Here we use gravity inversions to model the small-scale three-dimensional https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20170003155 2019-06-07T05:41:52+00:00Z 2 variations in the density of the lunar crust. Inversion results from three non-descript areas yield shallow density variations in the range of 100-200 kg/m 3 . Three end-member scenarios of variations in porosity, intrusions into the crust, and variations in bulk crustal composition were tested as possible sources of the density variations. We find that the density anomalies can be caused entirely by changes in porosity. Characteristics of density anomalies in the South PoleAitken basin also support porosity as a primary source of these variations. Mafic intrusions into the crust could explain many, but not all of the anomalies. Additionally, variations in crustal composition revealed by spectral data could only explain a small fraction of the density anomalies. Nevertheless, all three sources of density variations likely contribute. Collectively, results from this study of GRAIL gravity data, combined with other studies of remote sensing data and lunar samples, show that the lunar crust exhibits variations in density by ±10% over scales ranging from centimeters to 100's of kilometers.

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Section: Analysis Of the Inversion Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-scale density variations in the lunar crust revealed by GRAIL

Jansen

Andrews-Hanna

et al. 2017

Icarus

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“…usgs.gov/maps/lunar-kaguya-multiband-imager-mosaics) after topographical correction (Ohtake et al, 2013) may derive more accurate oxide abundances and lithology recognition. (4) Sori et al (2016) employed Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory gravity (Zuber, Smith, Goossens, et al, 2013;Zuber, Smith, Lehman, et al, 2013), LOLA topography (Smith et al, 2010), and geologic data to identify cryptovolcanism. The gravity data, which may provide important clues for cryptomare recognition, will be incorporated in the future work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lunar Cryptomare: New Insights Into the Balmer‐Kapteyn Region

Wang

Qiu

2018

JGR Planets

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Cryptomaria record the early mare volcanisms and put important constraints on the lunar thermal and volcanic history and on the early partial melting of the mantle. This work focuses on the representative cryptomare region of Balmer‐Kapteyn and employs multisource exploration data including Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Wide Angle Camera, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Narrow Angle Camera, Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter Digital Elevation Model (DEM), GLD 100, Chang'E‐1 Interference Imaging Spectrometer, Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Clementine, and Lunar Prospector Gamma‐Ray and Neutron Spectrometers data to provide new insights into the distribution, geometry, buried depth, space weathering, chemical compositions, lithology, and mineralogy of the cryptomare in the Balmer‐Kapteyn region. Some viewpoints are primarily as follows. (1) Cryptomare may widely occur in the Balmer‐Kapteyn region with various small and separate exposure areas. The lithology in this region has an obvious north‐south dichotomy. Alkali suite may dominate the northern region, responsible for the local Th enhancement, whereas ferroan anorthosite suite and magnesian suite may spread over the southern part. Cryptomare may occur in both the north and the south, with most exposures within the craters dominated by alkali suite or ferroan anorthosite suite. (2) The buried depths of the cryptomare may fall into the range from at least ~33 m to at least ~1,849 m. Thus, the buried thickness may be more than ~1.8 km. (3) The buried mare basalts in this region are member of the high‐alumina type and a previously unsampled new type of high‐alumina mare basalts may be revealed. (4) At least two periods of mare volcanisms or at least an intrusion of basaltic lava may have happened in this region. The erupted or intruded mare basalts in the later period are more abundant in Al but relatively poor in Fe, Ti, Ca, and Mg, and some of them were buried or intruded much shallowly (~33 m) under the surface ejecta.

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“…They found 20 discrete regions of cryptomaria, covering approximately 2% of the Moon, which increase the total area covered by mare volcanism to 18% of the lunar surface. Sori et al (2016) combined LOLA topography and GRAIL gravity to map the distribution of cryptovolcanic deposits. They modeled potential deposits as buried high-density rectangular prisms and estimated a volume of candidate buried cryptovolcanism between 0.4  10 6 km 3 and 4.8  10 6 km 3 , depending on assumptions about density and crustal compensation state.…”

Section: A C C E P T E D Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Summary of the results from the lunar orbiter laser altimeter after seven years in lunar orbit

Smith

Zuber

Neumann

et al. 2017

Icarus

Self Cite

134

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Highlights• LOLA acquired nearly 7 billion altimetric measurements of the Moon.• The LOLA-defined shape and reference frame enables accurate (<10m) geolocation globally. • The LOLA datasets, including topography, slope, roughness, and reflectance, supports geological and geomorphic studies of the lunar crust. • The high-resolution polar LOLA maps identified areas in permanent shadow and enable accurate illumination modeling. • Active and passive radiometry data were analyzed to inform surface composition and volatile distribution.

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Gravitational search for cryptovolcanism on the Moon: Evidence for large volumes of early igneous activity

Cited by 30 publications

References 80 publications

Small-scale density variations in the lunar crust revealed by GRAIL

Small-scale density variations in the lunar crust revealed by GRAIL

Lunar Cryptomare: New Insights Into the Balmer‐Kapteyn Region

Summary of the results from the lunar orbiter laser altimeter after seven years in lunar orbit

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