Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Re: Origins

Re: Lack of Lunar meteorites

I think the answer there may lie in some of Bill Hartmann's ideas about Mars meteorites.

Bill plotted the ages of surface terrains on Mars as a histogram, showing that large parts of Mars (~45%) were Hesperian in age (3.0-3.7 Ga), and some (~15%) was Noachian (3.7-4.0 Ga), while the remainder (~40%) was "young" Amazonian. He then plotted on the same chart the ages of the Mars Meteorites.

One (ALH84001) is 4.5 Ga - the oldest true rock we have recovered anywhere in the Solar Syatem.

A few are ~1.5 Ga, and the rest ~150 Ma.

All are igneous rocks.

Bill surmised that this vast overrepresentation of young rocks was due to the older terrains being either pulverised by previous impacts, or composed of friable sedimentary rocks.

These materials would probably fragment in the Mars impact into a shower of small pieces, rather than spalling-off the metre-to-several-metre fragments required to survive Earth reentry and deliver a specimen to the surface.

He also noted that a sedimentary rock, even if it did survive the journey, might not be recognised as a meteorite, and might weather rapidly on Earth and be either destroyed, or become indistinguishable from any other old bit of rock lying around.

Applying the same logic to the Moon, where the surface is heavily brecciated (albeit partly rewelded), it might be that the Lunar breccias are equally reluctant to yield sizeable fragments from an ejection event (The large boulders on the Moon may be remnants of smaller events that were not violent enough to eject material towards Earth, nor fragment the breccias)

There is also a shielding argument. Impacts that would eject material towards Earth would probably tend to be on the Earth-facing hemisphere. Impactors here have to pass Earth first and may be intercepted.

I admit I'm speculating wildly in the latter paragraph. I haven't seen any data on differential cratering rates on the Lunar nearside vs farside. Perhaps I'll ask Bill?

Going back to earlier paragraphs, I guess one line of evidence might be if Lunar meteorites were relatively rich in unbrecciated igneous rocks, compared to Apollo surface samples...

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (7 posts)