Lunar farside volcanism 2.8 billion years ago from Chang’e-6 basalts

Qian W. L. Zhang, Mu-Han Yang, Qiu-Li Li (), Yu Liu, Zong-Yu Yue, Qin Zhou, Liu-Yang Chen, Hong-Xia Ma, Sai-Hong Yang, Xu Tang, Guang-Liang Zhang, Xin Ren and Xian-Hua Li
Additional contact information
Qian W. L. Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mu-Han Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qiu-Li Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yu Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zong-Yu Yue: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qin Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Liu-Yang Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hong-Xia Ma: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Sai-Hong Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xu Tang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Guang-Liang Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xin Ren: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xian-Hua Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature, 2025, vol. 643, issue 8071, 356-360

Abstract: Abstract Unravelling the volcanic history of the enigmatic lunar farside is essential for understanding the hemispheric dichotomy of the Moon1–3. Cratering chronology established for the lunar nearside has been used to suggest long-lived volcanism on the farside of the Moon3,4 but without sample verification. We describe two episodes of basaltic volcanism identified by Pb–Pb dating of basalt fragments returned by the Chang’e-6 mission. One high-Al basalt fragment, dated at 4,203 ± 4 million years ago (Ma), has a source 238U/204Pb ratio (µ value) of approximately 1,620, implying a KREEP-rich (K, rare earth elements and P) source for this oldest-known example of basaltic volcanism among returned samples. The main volcanic episode of the Chang’e-6 basalt documents a surprisingly young eruption age of 2,807 ± 3 Ma, which has not been observed on the nearside of the Moon. The initial Pb isotope compositions of these younger basalts indicate a derivation from a source with a µ value of approximately 360, indicating a KREEP-poor mantle source. Mare volcanism on the lunar farside thus persisted for over 1.4 billion years, even if the source was depleted in heat-producing elements. The consistency between the 2.8-billion-year basalt age and the crater-counting age indicates that the cratering chronology model established for the lunar nearside is also applicable to the farside of the Moon.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08382-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:643:y:2025:i:8071:d:10.1038_s41586-024-08382-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08382-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().