Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p41a..04m&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P41A-04
Mathematics
Logic
[1026] Geochemistry / Composition Of The Moon, [3672] Mineralogy And Petrology / Planetary Mineralogy And Petrology, [5430] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Interiors, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon
Scientific paper
Recent SIMS analysis of lunar apatite has shown that hydroxyl is structurally bound within lunar apatite from a number of different lunar lithologic types (McCubbin et al., 2010a, 2010b; Boyce et al., 2010; Greenwood et al., 2010). These studies along with previous SIMS analyses of lunar fire fountain glasses (Saal et al., 2008) confirm that there is at least some water in the lunar interior, with abundance estimates in magmatic source regions ranging from 64 ppb to 5 ppm water (McCubbin et al., 2010a). Surprisingly, apatite from rocks with KREEP-rich incompatible trace element signatures are depleted in hydroxyl in comparison to apatite from typical mare basalts. This result is counter-intuitive to the lunar magma ocean model, which predicts that incompatible constituents (e.g., water) would have been concentrated in the last dregs of liquid referred to as “urKREEP”. The mare basalts, which formed by partial melting of earlier LMO cumulates, are typically depleted in these incompatible constituents. Complicating the issue further, chlorine, another incompatible magmatic volatile element in apatite, follows the predicted trend with apatite from KREEP-rich rocks containing significant chlorine concentrations in comparison to apatite from mare basalts (McCubbin et al., 2009). The preceding results imply one of two scenarios 1) Water did not behave incompatibly during LMO crystallization and was preferentially stored within the LMO cumulate minerals 2) A secondary process such as degassing has perturbed the initial volatile contents of the urKREEP liquid or of the secondary magmas that have KREEP-rich incompatible trace element signatures. In regards to the first scenario, the mineral melt partition coefficients for water would need to have exceeded unity at the very low water concentrations of the LMO liquid. This scenario is consistent with the behavior of chlorine, as chlorine is not typically stored in nominally anhydrous phases like pyroxene or olivine, likely due to its large ionic radius. However, there is no empirical or experimental evidence to support the elevated D values for water. Regarding the second scenario, if significant degassing of the urKREEP liquid or KREEP-rich secondary magmas occurred, water would have certainly been lost preferentially to the other volatile constituents in apatite (fluorine and chlorine); however chlorine isotopes analyzed in lunar apatites are highly fractionated (Sharp et al., 2010), indicating degassing of chlorine in the absence of water. Therefore, this scenario only works if degassing on the Moon was a multi-stage and complex process where water and chlorine degassing are decoupled, which is not typically the case for terrestrial systems (Aiuppa et al., 2009, Webster and De Vivo, 2002; Webster et al., 1999). Solving this apparent KREEP-mare dichotomy regarding magmatic volatiles in the lunar interior is the next important step in figuring out the importance, relevance, and implications of water in the lunar interior. Moreover, it will lend insight into the roles of the other magmatic volatiles during the thermal and magmatic evolution of the Moon.
McCubbin Francis M.
Nekvasil Hanna
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