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Abstract
Introduction
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References

The lunar surface as a recorder of astrophysical processes

Profile image of ian crawfordian crawford

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

https://doi.org/10.1098/RSTA.2019.0562
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20 pages

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Abstract

The lunar surface has been exposed to the space environment for billions of years and during this time has accumulated records of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. These include solar wind particles and the cosmogenic products of solar particle events which preserve a record of the past evolution of the Sun, and cosmogenic nuclides produced by high-energy galactic cosmic rays which potentially record the galactic environment of the Solar System through time. The lunar surface may also have accreted material from the local interstellar medium, including supernova ejecta and material from interstellar clouds encountered by the Solar System in the past. Owing to the Moon's relatively low level of geological activity, absence of an atmosphere, and, for much of its history, lack of a magnetic field, the lunar surface is ideally suited to collect these astronomical records. Moreover, the Moon exhibits geological processes able to bury and thus both preserve and ‘time-stamp'...

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Noble gas exposure ages of samples from Cone and North Ray craters: Implications for the recent lunar cratering chronology
Laurent Zimmermann

Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 2021

Cosmic ray exposure (CRE) ages of rocks that were ejected by the impacts that created Cone and North Ray craters provide two crucial calibration points at <100 Ma for the lunar cratering chronology function, which relates the crater density of geological units on the Moon to their absolute age. To reassess the formation ages of these two craters, we determine here the accumulated abundances of 'cosmogenic' noble gas nuclides (3 He cosm , 21 Ne cosm , 38 Ar cosm), as well as the corresponding CRE ages, in six Apollo 14 rocks (i.e., one breccia and five basalts) and two Apollo 16 anorthosites that were collected near the rims of Cone and North Ray craters, respectively. Although noble gas concentrations allow CRE ages to be derived, the calculated 21 Ne and 38 Ar exposure ages of a given sample cover a significant range of values because published empirical or theoretical production rates of cosmogenic nuclides are highly variable. Nonetheless, it is evident that mare basalts 14053 and 14072 as well as breccia 14068, which were collected near the rim of Cone Crater, were exposed at the lunar surface more recently than the three KREEP basalts (14073, 14077, 14078) collected further away. The 38 Ar exposure ages of anorthosites 67075 and 67955 from North Ray Crater slightly exceed those of samples 14053, 14068, and 14072. These results confirm that Cone Crater is younger than North Ray Crater. However, the formation ages of Cone and North Ray craters have larger uncertainties than previously acknowledged. This implies that the uncertainties of noble gas exposure ages should be taken into account when remotely dating young surfaces on the Moon and on other planetary bodies in the solar system.

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