Publication Date:
2009-09-11
Description:
It has been thought that the lunar highland crust was formed by the crystallization and floatation of plagioclase from a global magma ocean, although the actual generation mechanisms are still debated. The composition of the lunar highland crust is therefore important for understanding the formation of such a magma ocean and the subsequent evolution of the Moon. The Multiband Imager on the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE) has a high spatial resolution of optimized spectral coverage, which should allow a clear view of the composition of the lunar crust. Here we report the global distribution of rocks of high plagioclase abundance (approaching 100 vol.%), using an unambiguous plagioclase absorption band recorded by the SELENE Multiband Imager. If the upper crust indeed consists of nearly 100 vol.% plagioclase, this is significantly higher than previous estimates of 82-92 vol.% (refs 2, 6, 7), providing a valuable constraint on models of lunar magma ocean evolution.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ohtake, Makiko -- Matsunaga, Tsuneo -- Haruyama, Junichi -- Yokota, Yasuhiro -- Morota, Tomokatsu -- Honda, Chikatoshi -- Ogawa, Yoshiko -- Torii, Masaya -- Miyamoto, Hideaki -- Arai, Tomoko -- Hirata, Naru -- Iwasaki, Akira -- Nakamura, Ryosuke -- Hiroi, Takahiro -- Sugihara, Takamitsu -- Takeda, Hiroshi -- Otake, Hisashi -- Pieters, Carle M -- Saiki, Kazuto -- Kitazato, Kohei -- Abe, Masanao -- Asada, Noriaki -- Demura, Hirohide -- Yamaguchi, Yasushi -- Sasaki, Sho -- Kodama, Shinsuke -- Terazono, Junya -- Shirao, Motomaro -- Yamaji, Atsushi -- Minami, Shigeyuki -- Akiyama, Hiroaki -- Josset, Jean-Luc -- England -- Nature. 2009 Sep 10;461(7261):236-40. doi: 10.1038/nature08317.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3-1-1 Yoshino-dai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19741704" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
