Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufm.p51c..03p&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #P51C-03
Physics
5410 Composition, 5464 Remote Sensing
Scientific paper
The Moon appears to be a colorless rocky and arid ancient planetary body. This half-truth, however, is actually what makes the Moon the cornerstone for planetary science and a geologist's delight. Much of the color of the Moon is subtle; color differences are only a few percent compared to solar radiation (McCord, PhD thesis 1968). From returned lunar samples we know that lunar minerals have all the diagnostic spectral properties seen in terrestrial materials, but without the enormous overprint of hydrous weathering or the mask of vegetation. This has allowed the identification and mapping using remote spectroscopic techniques of key lunar rock types based on inherent mineralogy: basalts, norites, gabbros, anorthosites, troctolites (perhaps dunites), and a host of mixed lithologies. Most of the surface, of course, is covered with well-developed soil that includes components of the local environment. The unusual optical properties of lunar soils recently helped characterize weathering issues in the space environment. The 5-color Clementine data, although low spectral resolution, have provided unprecedented maps of global lunar color variations, many of which have direct, but approximate, compositional implications. The enormous basin on the lunar farside (South Pole-Aitken, SPA), for example, is an anomaly both in composition and geology. Unlike the smaller nearside basins, the ancient SPA has not been filled with mare basalts, but its interior is observed to be enriched in iron-bearing minerals, most of which are noritic in nature. This material is believed to represent largely the lower crust (principally as melt breccia) with perhaps localized areas containing upper mantle components. If we can do this much with just 5 bands of data, just think of what is possible if a modern imaging spectrometer is ever flown to the Moon!
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