Impact Melt Facies in the Moon's Crisium Basin: Identifying, Characterizing, and Future Radiogenic Dating.

ABSTRACT: Both Earth and the Moon share a common history regarding the epoch of large basin formation, though only the lunar geologic record preserves any appreciable record of this Late Heavy Bombardment. The emergence of Earth's first life is approximately contemporaneous with the Late Heavy Bombardment; understanding the latter informs the environmental conditions of the former, which are likely necessary to constrain the mechanisms of abiogenesis. While the relative formation time of most of the Moon's large basins is known, the absolute timing is not. The timing of Crisium Basin's formation is one of many important events that must be constrained and would require identifying and dating impact melt formed in the Crisium event. To inform a future lunar sample dating mission, we thus characterize

SUBMITTER: Runyon KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7375055 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature