Implications of the Distinctive Mafic Mound in Central SPA (Invited)

Details Implications of the Distinctive Mafic Mound in Central SPA (Invited) Implications of the Distinctive Mafic Mound in Central SPA (Invited)

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p43a..04p&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P43A-04

Physics

[5420] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Impact Phenomena, Cratering, [5455] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Origin And Evolution

Scientific paper

On the lunar farside, the center of the ~8-km deep South Pole-Aitken basin (SPA) is host to a Fe-rich compositional anomaly that extends across the basin interior for more than 1600 km. Within this anomaly exist small regions of mare basalt and a limited number of cryptomaria. The remainder of the expansive anomaly is expected to be a product of the event that formed the basin and is most likely comprised of impact-melt breccia (impact melt containing fragmented rocks or blocks). The SPA impact melt would represent a mixture of the crustal column at that location on the farside. Clementine multispectral data clearly distinguish SPA basaltic regions from the rest of the basin interior and suggest that the SPA non-mare anomaly is largely dominated by noritic compositions (with low-Ca pyroxene as the dominant mafic mineral). This noritic composition of large portions of SPA interior has been confirmed by Kaguya Multiband Imager and Spectral Profiler and the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on Chandrayaan-1. In the centermost deep interior of SPA, however, is a broad mound of a different mafic composition, currently called “Mafic Mound” (formerly known as “Olivine Hill”). Mafic Mound and some of the region surrounding it exhibits a distinctive gabbroic composition (the dominant mafic mineral being high-Ca pyroxene). This pre-Nectarian hill itself is ~30x40 km in dimension and rises about 800 m above the surrounding material. The area is marked by a few small secondaries (perhaps from the distant Orientale basin). Since the Mafic Mound region is also expected to represent SPA impact-melt breccia, its distinctive composition implies that the extensive impact melt deposits across the basin have not been fully homogenized. The location, morphology, and unusual composition suggest that Mafic Mound represents material that tapped a deeper and distinct zone of the lunar crust, perhaps including the lunar mantle.

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