1. Detailed petrogenesis of the unsampled Oceanus Procellarum: The case of the Chang'e-5 mare basalts.
- Author
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He, Qi, Li, Yiheng, Baziotis, Ioannis, Qian, Yuqi, Xiao, Long, Wang, Zaicong, Zhang, Wen, Luo, Biji, Neal, Clive R., Day, James M.D., Pan, Fabin, She, Zhenbing, Wu, Xiang, Hu, Zhaochu, Zong, Keqing, and Wang, Lu
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MARES , *PETROGENESIS , *BASALT , *SOIL sampling , *MAGMAS , *METEORITES , *IMMISCIBILITY - Abstract
Lunar mare basalts provide a probe to study the magmatic and thermal evolution of the Moon. The Chang'e-5 (CE-5) mission returned samples from a young and hitherto unsampled mare terrain, providing fresh opportunities to understand lunar volcanic history. A detailed petrologic survey was conducted in this study on basalt fragments and glasses from the returned CE-5 soil samples. Relatively large-sized (100–400 μm) basaltic fragments were hand-picked and examined for texture, mineral assemblage and mineral chemistries. Basaltic fragments exhibit dominantly subophitic textures and are phenocryst-free, with low to intermediate-Ti (2.1–5.5 wt%) and low Mg# (Mg/(Mg + Fe) × 100, 19–47, with an average whole-rock Mg# of 33) consistent with olivine-melt equilibrium calculation (Mg# = 34). A range of highly evolved basaltic materials have been identified, in which abundant fayalitic olivine, symplectitic intergrowths, and Si + K-rich mesostasis co-exist were found resulting from late-stage silicate liquid immiscibility. Basaltic glass compositions largely overlap with basaltic fragment compositions suggesting they are locally derived. The CE-5 basalts have a relatively limited range of eruption temperatures of 1150–1230 °C. Based on their petrographic and geochemical characteristics, some CE-5 mare basalts are highly evolved and some of the resultant basaltic melt products underwent high crystallization. Thermodynamic modeling using MELTS suggests highly evolved basaltic magma was produced by a low-pressure and simple fractional crystallization under reduced conditions. This may have occurred at the surface in the inflated Em4/P58 flow with a thickness of ~50 m. The low degree of partial melting mantle source of the parental melts is the late-stage lunar magma ocean cumulates in a similar manner to some evolved low-Ti mare basalt meteorites, although the source of CE-5 basalts may have been slightly more Ti-rich. • Young low to intermediate-Ti basaltic lavas of the Chang'e-5 site are highly evolved, with average Mg# = 33 • Some basalts show silicate liquid immiscibility (SLI) textures underwent significant fractional crystallization • Relatively low-pressure (1 bar to 5 kbar) simple fractional crystallization under reduced conditions could produce the highly evolved magma • The crystallization of the CE-5 basalts leading to the compositions and the SLI textures are likely to have occurred in the 50 m thick Em4/P58 flow that CE-5 sampled [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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