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Evidence for basaltic volcanism on the Moon within the past 100 million years

Nature Geoscience volume 7, pages 787–791 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The bulk of basaltic magmatism on the Moon occurred from 3.9 to 3.1 billion years ago on the ancient lunar mare plains1. There is evidence for basaltic volcanism as recently as 2.9 billion years ago from crystallization ages2 and a billion years ago from stratigraphy3,4. An enigmatic surface formation named Ina (18.65° N, 5.30° E) may represent much younger mare volcanism, but age estimates are poorly constrained5,6,7,8. Here we investigate 70 small topographic anomalies, termed irregular mare patches (100–5,000 m maximum dimension), on the lunar nearside with irregular morphologies and textures similar to Ina, using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter narrow angle camera images9, digital terrain models and wide angle camera colour ratios. The irregular mare patches exhibit sharp, metre-scale morphology with relatively few superposed impact craters larger than ten metres in diameter. Crater distributions from the three largest irregular mare patches imply ages younger than 100 million years, based on chronology models of the lunar surface10,11. The morphology of the features is also consistent with small basaltic eruptions that occurred significantly after the established cessation of lunar mare basaltic volcanism. Such late-stage eruptions suggest a long decline of lunar volcanism and constrain models of the Moon’s thermal evolution.

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Figure 1: Distribution of IMPs on the nearside.
Figure 2: Examples of IMPs.
Figure 3: CSFDs from IMPs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project and would not have been possible without the hard work of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Science Operations Center team. Thank you to R. Wagner for help with figure preparation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, 1100 S. Cady Mall, Interdisciplinary A, Tempe, Arizona 85287-3603, USA

    S. E. Braden, J. D. Stopar, M. S. Robinson & S. J. Lawrence

  2. Institut für Planetologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Wilhelm-Klemm-Str. 10, 48149 Münster, Germany

    C. H. van der Bogert & H. Hiesinger

Authors
  1. S. E. Braden
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  2. J. D. Stopar
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  3. M. S. Robinson
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  5. C. H. van der Bogert
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  6. H. Hiesinger
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Contributions

S.E.B. and M.S.R. conceived and designed the analyses. S.E.B. collected and analysed data; J.D.S. and S.E.B. both documented and characterized new IMPs. S.J.L. assisted in the interpretation of remote sensing data. C.H.v.d.B. and H.H. aided in the methodology and interpretation of CSFDs. S.E.B. wrote the manuscript with inputs from all authors.

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Correspondence to S. E. Braden.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Braden, S., Stopar, J., Robinson, M. et al. Evidence for basaltic volcanism on the Moon within the past 100 million years. Nature Geosci 7, 787–791 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2252

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