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Asymmetric crustal growth on the Moon indicated by primitive farside highland materials

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 384–388 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Moon’s nearside and farside differ in topography1, crustal thickness2, mare volcanic activity3 and elemental concentrations4. The origin of this dichotomy is still unclear5,6,7. It is also unknown whether the characteristics of the oldest crust, the anorthositic lunar highlands, reflect a different magmatic evolution of nearside and farside crust. Based on analyses of nearside highland rocks8,9, it has been suggested that nearside crustal growth occurred from an evolved, iron-rich magma ocean10, but information from the farside highlands is lacking. Here we apply an empirical algorithm to lunar reflectance spectra11 from the Kaguya Spectral Profiler and report that magnesium contents relative to iron of primitive crustal highland rocks on the farside are higher than on the nearside. Our findings indicate that the farside crust consists of rocks that crystallized from less-evolved magma than the nearside crust. We conclude that the lunar dichotomy is directly linked to crystallization of the magma ocean and suggest that the composition of the magma ocean was more primitive at the time of crustal growth than previously estimated.

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Figure 1: Mafic mineral abundance (vol.%) of the lunar highlands.
Figure 2: Mg# of the lunar highlands with representative spectra and example of spatial trend.
Figure 3: Mg# histograms of different data sources.
Figure 4: Plausible dichotomic crustal growth mechanism of the lunar highland crust.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Kaguya project team and the Lunar Imager/SpectroMeter team members, especially R. Nakamura for useful discussions. Our work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI; 22540443).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3-1-1 Yoshino-dai, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210, Japan

    Makiko Ohtake & Junichi Haruyama

  2. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

    Hiroshi Takeda

  3. Center for Environmental Measurement and Analysis, National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan

    Tsuneo Matsunaga, Yasuhiro Yokota & Satoru Yamamoto

  4. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan

    Tomokatsu Morota

  5. The University of Aizu, Ikki-machi, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima 965-8580, Japan

    Yoshiko Ogawa

  6. Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA

    Takahiro Hiroi

  7. Lunar and Planetary Exploration Program Group, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3-1-1 Yoshino-dai, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210, Japan

    Yuzuru Karouji

  8. Department of Earth and Space Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan

    Kazuto Saiki

  9. Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA

    Paul G. Lucey

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  1. Makiko Ohtake
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Contributions

T. Matsunaga, S.Y., Y.O. and Y.Y. calibrated Spectral Profiler data. M.O. conducted data analyses. M.O., H.T., T. Matsunaga, Y.Y., J.H., T. Morota, T.H., R.N., Y.K., K.S. and P.G.L. contributed to writing and improving the paper. All the authors contributed to discussions of the results.

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Correspondence to Makiko Ohtake.

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Ohtake, M., Takeda, H., Matsunaga, T. et al. Asymmetric crustal growth on the Moon indicated by primitive farside highland materials. Nature Geosci 5, 384–388 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1458

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