Lunar Impact Basins: Probes into the Lunar Crust

Details Lunar Impact Basins: Probes into the Lunar Crust Lunar Impact Basins: Probes into the Lunar Crust

Jan 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998nvmi.conf...22b&link_type=abstract

Workshop on New Views of the Moon: Integrated Remotely Sensed, Geophysical, and Sample Datasets, p. 22

Physics

Ejecta, Lunar Crust, Lunar Maria, Meteorite Craters, Lunar Craters, Selenography, Mineralogy, Lunar Probes, Impact Damage, Lunar Topography

Scientific paper

Impact basins excavate large regions of the lunar crust, bringing rocks from great depths up to the surface for examination. Clementine's UVVIS camera mapped the Moon globally in five different wavelengths (415, 750, 900, 950, and 1000 mm). We have used the full resolution data (250 m/pixel) to undertake a systematic study of the Moon's impact basins. Analysis of the eject a blankets of basins on both the lunar nearside and farside has allowed us to map the compositionally distinct units associated with the basins. We have constructed both multispectral images and quantitative Fe and Ti maps. Thus, we can use basins as probes into the lunar crust and build up a 3-D reconstruction of the crust. The basins covered so far are Orientale, Humboldtianum, Humorum, Nectaris, Crisium, and parts of the Imbrium Basin. The 900-km-diameter Orientale Basin was chosen for study as it is the youngest, best-preserved large basin on the Moon. Our research has shown that the basin ejecta units are largely homogeneous and feldspathic in composition with the Montes Rook Formation being slightly more mafic than both the Maunder and Hevelius Formations. The presence of outcrops of pure anorthosite, associated with the scarps of the Inner Rook mountain ring, has been confirmed, and the amount of anorthosite present is far more than previously suspected. These appear as dark blue regions in the multispectral image and as places with very low (<2 wt%) FeO concentrations in the Fe map.

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