Nitrogen Isotopes on the Moon: Archives of the Solar and Planetary Contributions to the Inner Solar System

Marty, Bernard; Hashizume, K.; Chaussidon, M.; Wieler, R.

doi:10.1007/978-94-010-0145-8_12

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…They instead confirm that nitrogen in lunar soils results from mixing of SW (light) N with different cosmochemical components enriched in 15 N, such as asteroidal matter (Geiss and Bochsler, 1991;Wieler et al, 1999;Hashizume et al, 2000Hashizume et al, , 2002Marty et al, 2003), cometary matter (shown to be strongly enriched in 15 N; e.g., Bockelée-Morvan et al, 2008), or, possibly, isotopically fractionated nitrogen that escaped the terrestrial atmosphere (Bochsler, 1994;Ozima et al, 2005). Fig.…”

Section: Implications For Solar Physicsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Nitrogen isotopes in the recent solar wind from the analysis of Genesis targets: Evidence for large scale isotope heterogeneity in the early solar system

Marty

Zimmermann

Burnard

et al. 2010

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

101

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Section: Implications For Solar Physicsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Nitrogen isotopes in the recent solar wind from the analysis of Genesis targets: Evidence for large scale isotope heterogeneity in the early solar system

Marty

Zimmermann

Burnard

et al. 2010

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

101

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“…It has only been in recent decades that more modern instrumentation and techniques, with much lower detection limits, have been able to address this issue. The 15 N/ 14 N ratio for the bulk Moon have been measured in lunar soils as summarized by Marty et al (2003) and is characterized by d 15 N of ~ +90 to -190‰. These values are within the range measured for carbonaceous chondrites, and are quite distinct from those in comets, strongly suggesting that the indigenous lunar N budget is characterized by a carbonaceous chondrite-like signature (Marty et al 2003;Saal et al 2013).…”

Section: Outstanding Questions and Future Avenues Of Researchmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The 15 N/ 14 N ratio for the bulk Moon have been measured in lunar soils as summarized by Marty et al (2003) and is characterized by d 15 N of ~ +90 to -190‰. These values are within the range measured for carbonaceous chondrites, and are quite distinct from those in comets, strongly suggesting that the indigenous lunar N budget is characterized by a carbonaceous chondrite-like signature (Marty et al 2003;Saal et al 2013). These assertions seem to be reinforced by a pilot study involving step combustion experiments carried out on powdered chips of 6 mare basalts that yielded a d 15 N value of 0 ± 9‰, providing a much tighter constraint for the isotopic composition of indigenous lunar N (Mortimer et al 2015).…”

Section: Outstanding Questions and Future Avenues Of Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magmatic volatiles (H, C, N, F, S, Cl) in the lunar mantle, crust, and regolith: Abundances, distributions, processes, and reservoirs

McCubbin

Kaaden

Tartèse

et al. 2015

American Mineralogist

183

106

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Many studies exist on magmatic volatiles (H, C, N, F, S, Cl) in and on the Moon, within the last several years, that have cast into question the post-Apollo view of lunar formation, the distribution and sources of volatiles in the Earth-Moon system, and the thermal and magmatic evolution of the Moon. However, these recent observations are not the first data on lunar volatiles. When Apollo samples were first returned, substantial efforts were made to understand volatile elements, and a wealth of data regarding volatile elements exists in this older literature. In this review paper, we approach volatiles in and on the Moon using new and old data derived from lunar samples and remote sensing. From combining these data sets, we identified many points of convergence, although numerous questions remain unanswered.The abundances of volatiles in the bulk silicate Moon (BSM), lunar mantle, and urKREEP [last ~1% of the lunar magma ocean (LMO)] were estimated and placed within the context of the LMO model. The lunar mantle is likely heterogeneous with respect to volatiles, and the relative abundances of F, Cl, and H 2 O in the lunar mantle (H 2 O > F >> Cl) do not directly reflect those of BSM or urKREEP (Cl > H 2 O ≈ F). In fact, the abundances of volatiles in the cumulate lunar mantle were likely controlled by partitioning of volatiles between LMO liquid and nominally anhydrous minerals instead of residual liquid trapped in the cumulate pile. An internally consistent model for lunar volatiles in BSM should reproduce the absolute and relative abundances of volatiles in urKREEP, the anorthositic primary crust, and the lunar mantle within the context of processes that occurred during the thermal and magmatic evolution of the Moon. Using this mass-balance constraint, we conducted LMO crystallization calculations with a specific focus on the distributions and abundances of F, Cl, and H 2 O to determine whether or not estimates of F, Cl, and H 2 O in urKREEP are consistent with those of the lunar mantle, estimated independently from the analysis of volatiles in mare volcanic materials. Our estimate of volatiles in the bulk lunar mantle are 0.54-4.5 ppm F, 0.15-5.3 ppm H 2 O, 0.26-2.9 ppm Cl, 0.014-0.57 ppm C, and 78.9 ppm S. Our estimates of H 2 O are depleted compared to independent estimates of H 2

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“…The Moon is possibly (at the 2σ level) distinct from Earth in Mg (Esat and Taylor, 1999), Fe (Poitrasson et al, 2004), and K (Humayun and Clayton, 1995). The Moon is isotopically distinct from Earth in Zn (Paniello et al, 2012), N (Marty et al, 2003), and probably in H (Robinson and Taylor, 2014). In Figure 1, these isotopic shifts between the Earth and the bulk Moon are plotted against volatility as measured by their 50% condensation temperatures in the solar nebula (Lodders 2003).…”

Section: The Moon's Isotopic Abundancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magneto-rotational instability in the protolunar disk

Carballido

Desch

Taylor

2016

Icarus

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We perform the first study of magnetohydrodynamic processes in the protolunar disk (PLD). With the use of published data on the chemical composition of the PLD, along with existing analytical models of the disk structure, we show that the high temperatures that were prevalent in the disk would have led to ionization of Na, K, SiO, Zn and, to a lesser extent, O 2 . For simplicity, we assume that the disk has a vapor structure. The resulting ionization fractions, together with a relatively weak magnetic field, possibly of planetary origin, would have been sufficient to trigger the magneto-rotational instability, or MRI, as demonstrated by the fact that the Elsasser criterion was met in the PLD: a magnetic field embedded in the flow would have diffused more slowly than the growth rate of the linear perturbations. We calculate the intensity of the resulting magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, as parameterized by the dimensionless ratio α of turbulent stresses to gas pressure, and obtain maximum values α ∼ 10 −2 along most of the vertical extent of the disk, and at different orbital radii. This indicates that, under these conditions, turbulent mixing within the PLD due to the MRI was likely capable of transporting isotopic and chemical species efficiently. To test these results in a conservative manner, we carry out a numerical magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a small, rectangular patch of the PLD, located at 4 Earth radii (r E ) from the center of the Earth, and assuming once again that the disk is completely gaseous. We use a polytrope-like equation of state. The rectangular patch is threaded initially by a vertical magnetic field with zero net magnetic flux. This field configuration is known to produce relatively weak MRI turbulence in studies of astrophysical accretion disks. We accordingly obtain turbulence with an average intensity α ∼ 7 × 10 −6 over the course of 280 orbital periods (133 days at 4r E ). Despite this relatively low value of α, the effective turbulent diffusivity D ∼ 10 10 − 10 11 cm 2 s −1 of a passive tracer introduced in the flow is large enough to allow the tracer to spread across a radial distance of 10r E in ∼ 13 − 129 yr, less than the estimated cooling time of the PLD of ∼ 250 yr. Further improvements to our model will need to incorporate the energy balance in the disk, a complete two-phase structure, and a more realistic equation of state.

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Nitrogen Isotopes on the Moon: Archives of the Solar and Planetary Contributions to the Inner Solar System

Cited by 9 publications

References 50 publications

Nitrogen isotopes in the recent solar wind from the analysis of Genesis targets: Evidence for large scale isotope heterogeneity in the early solar system

Nitrogen isotopes in the recent solar wind from the analysis of Genesis targets: Evidence for large scale isotope heterogeneity in the early solar system

Magmatic volatiles (H, C, N, F, S, Cl) in the lunar mantle, crust, and regolith: Abundances, distributions, processes, and reservoirs

Magneto-rotational instability in the protolunar disk

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