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High-velocity collisions from the lunar cataclysm recorded in asteroidal meteorites

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 303–307 (2013)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 29 April 2013

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Abstract

The Moon experienced an intense period of impacts about 4 Gyr ago. This cataclysm is thought to have affected the entire inner Solar System and has been constrained by the radiometric dating of lunar samples: 40Ar–39Ar ages reflect the heating and degassing of target rocks by large basin-forming impacts on the Moon. Radiometric dating of meteorites from Vesta and the H-chondrite parent body also shows numerous 40Ar–39Ar ages between 3.4 and 4.1 Gyr ago, despite a different dynamical context, where impacts typically occur at velocities too low to reset geochronometers. Here we interpret the 40Ar–39Ar age record in meteorites to reflect unusually high impact velocities exceeding 10 km s−1. Compared with typical impact velocities for main-belt asteroids of about 5 km s−1, these collisions would produce 100–1,000 times more highly heated material by volume. We propose that the 40Ar–39Ar ages between 3.4 and 4.1 Gyr ago from Vesta, the H-chondrite parent body and the Moon record impacts from numerous main-belt asteroids that were driven onto high-velocity and highly eccentric orbits by the effects of the late migration of the giant planets. We suggest that the bombardment persisted for many hundreds of millions of years and affected most inner Solar System bodies.

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Figure 1: Distributions of impact-reset 40Ar–39Ar ages of meteorites and lunar samples.
Figure 2: Hydrocode-based computations of impact heating for various collision velocities.
Figure 3: The asteroid belt before and after late giant planet migration.
Figure 4: The impact flux and impact heating curve on Vesta.

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  • 24 March 2013

    In the print version of this Article, in the 7th author affiliation the US state is incorrect; it should read 'Arizona'. The 'accepted' date of the Article is also incorrect; it should read 8 February 2013. These errors are correct in the HTML and PDF versions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Bogard, B. Ivanov, A. Morbidelli, D. Nesvorny, T. Swindle and the Dawn Science Team for helpful discussions and insightful comments. The contributions of S.M., W.F.B., B.A.C. and D.A.K. were supported by the NASA Lunar Science Institute (Center for Lunar Origin and Evolution at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado— NASA Grant NNA09DB32A; Center for Lunar Science and Exploration at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas). The contribution of K.W. was funded by the Helmholtz-Alliance ‘Planetary Evolution and Life’. D.P.O’B. and P.S. thank the NASA Dawn at Vesta Participating Scientist Program. The contribution of M.C.D.S. was partially supported by Agenzia Spaziale Italiana. Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Lunar Science Institute, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado 80302, USA

    S. Marchi & W. F. Bottke

  2. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama 35805, USA

    B. A. Cohen

  3. Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin 10115, Germany

    K. Wünnemann

  4. USRA—Lunar and Planetary Institute, NASA Lunar Science Institute, Houston, Texas 77058, USA

    D. A. Kring

  5. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA

    H. Y. McSween

  6. Istituto Nazionale d’Astrofisica, Rome 00133, Italy

    M. C. De Sanctis

  7. Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona 85719, USA

    D. P. O’Brien

  8. Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas 77058, USA

    P. Schenk

  9. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California 91109, USA

    C. A. Raymond

  10. University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA

    C. T. Russell

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Contributions

S.M. and W.F.B. performed much of the numerical modelling work. K.W. performed the hydrocode simulations used to generate the impact heating relationships. Compilations of the Ar–Ar data, as well as a detailed analysis of how these age distributions should be interpreted, were provided by B.A.C., D.A.K., M.C.D.S. and S.M. All authors contributed to a discussion of the results and their implications.

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Correspondence to S. Marchi.

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Marchi, S., Bottke, W., Cohen, B. et al. High-velocity collisions from the lunar cataclysm recorded in asteroidal meteorites. Nature Geosci 6, 303–307 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1769

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