Spectral interpretation of late-stage mare basalt mineralogy unveiled by Chang’E-5 samples

Dawei Liu, Xing Wang, Jianjun Liu (), Bin Liu (), Xin Ren, Yuan Chen, Zhaopeng Chen, Hongbo Zhang, Guangliang Zhang, Qin Zhou, Zhoubin Zhang, Qiang Fu and Chunlai Li ()
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Dawei Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xing Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jianjun Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Bin Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xin Ren: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yuan Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhaopeng Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hongbo Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Guangliang Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qin Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhoubin Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qiang Fu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chunlai Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The western maria of lunar near-side are widely covered with late-stage mare basalts. Due to the lack of returned samples, the mineralogy of the late-stage basalts was previously speculated as having high abundance of olivine based on remote sensing observation. However, here we show that Chang’E-5 (CE-5) lunar soil samples, the ground truth from past unsampled lunar late-stage mare region, give a different interpretation. Our laboratory spectroscopic and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses of the CE-5 soil samples demonstrate that their special spectral signatures are representative of iron-rich high-Ca pyroxene rather than olivine. Considering the spectral and compositional similarities between CE-5 soil samples and lunar late-stage basalts, the mineralogy and petrology of CE-5 samples may be able to be generalized to entire lunar late-stage basalts. Our study would provide a constraint on the thermal evolution of the Moon, especially the young lunar volcanism.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33670-6

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