A shallow mantle source for the Chang'e 5 lavas reveals how top-down heating prolonged lunar magmatism.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40680141.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adr1486 and PMC identifier 12273790.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
The 2-billion-year-old basalts collected by the Chang'e 5 mission are younger than any other sampled lunar igneous rock. These lavas provide critical insight into the evolution of the Moon at a time when magmatism was waning and represent a key data point for understanding how rocky bodies cool. Here, we present high-P-T experiments and phase equilibrium modeling performed on a Chang'e 5 basalt composition that show the parental magma formed in the shallow mantle, at ~75- to 130-kilometer depth. This shallow source and Sr-Nd isotopic evidence for the lack of the heat-producing KREEP reservoir in sources of the Chang'e 5 basalt and high-Ti basalts collected by Apollo demonstrate that KREEP was not carried into the deep mantle to generate prolonged melting. Rather, we show that a subcrustal KREEP layer conductively heating the nearside mantle from the top down is likely responsible for prolonged lunar magmatism.