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ANNIVERSARY RETROSPECTIVE

Telltale tungsten and the Moon

Nature Geoscience volume 11, pages 16–18 (2018)Cite this article

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Advances in high-precision isotopic analysis have provided key constraints on the origin and early evolution of the Earth and Moon. Measurements of the isotopes of tungsten provide the most stringent constraints on this history.

The Earth–Moon system is currently thought to have emerged from the impact of two planet-sized bodies towards the end of planetary accretion1. Although this idea is now more than four decades old2,3, new tools to test, develop and interrogate the giant-impact hypothesis have come of age over the past decade. An isotopic resemblance for lunar and terrestrial rocks was recognized upon initial analysis of the lunar samples returned by the Apollo program, but recent advances in analytical techniques have revealed the scope and magnitude of the isotopic similarities and differences between the Earth and Moon. The flood of new high-precision isotopic data has presented challenges to leading hypotheses of Moon formation and motivated new proposals of processes accompanying lunar origin that can reconcile the observed isotopic signatures. In particular, high-precision measurements of tungsten (W) reported in Nature in 20074 and 20155,6 have stirred the debate over how the Earth–Moon system evolved.

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Fig. 1: A view of the evolution of the Earth–Moon system as revealed by high precision isotope measurements.

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  1. The School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Kaveh Pahlevan

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  1. Kaveh Pahlevan
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Pahlevan, K. Telltale tungsten and the Moon. Nature Geosci 11, 16–18 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-017-0047-7

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