Spectral analysis of the Apollo basin on the Moon

Studies, e.g. [1,2], reveal that the South-Pole Aitken (SPA) basin is unique, particularly because it is the deepest basin on the Moon and might be expected to expose the lunar mantle [3]. The innermost part of SPA is rich in high Ca-pyroxenes, except for some central crater peaks, where low Ca-pyroxenes dominate. No extensive olivine-rich areas are observed, implying a mantle rich in low Ca-pyroxenes instead of olivine [1, 3, 4]. Furthermore, thorium anomalies have been discovered in two craters within Aitken basin [5]. Here, we focus on the spectral analysis of one of the most interesting impact crater inside SPA, the Apollo basin. Recently, [6] published a detailed geological map of the area surrounding Apollo basin (35.69°S, 151.48°W; D~524 km), using morphology, stratigraphy, crater size-frequency distribution measurements, and Clementine spectral data to define the unit. Our work explores data from the M3 imaging spectrometer onboard Chandrayaan-1 [7] for this region. These analyses are part of the PLANMAP project, and the integration of the spectroscopical information with the results from [6] will permit to produce highly informative geological maps of the Moon [8].

This work is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research grant agreement No 776276- PLANMAP.

References

[1] Ohtake, M. et al., 2014, GRL.

[2] Moriarty, D.P. et al., 2018, JGR.

[3] Dhingra, D., 2018, Geosciences.

[4] Melosh, H. J., et al., 2017, Geology.

[5] Lawrence, D.J. et al., 2000, JGR.

[6] Ivanov, M.A., 2018, JGR.

[7] Pieters et al., 2009, Current Science

[8] https://www.planmap.eu/