Decline of the lunar core dynamo

Tikoo, Sonia M.; Weiss, Benjamin P.; Cassata, William S.; Shuster, David L.; Gattacceca, Jérôme; Lima, Eduardo A.; Suavet, Clément; Nimmo, Francis; Fuller, Michael D.

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2014.07.010

Decline of the lunar core dynamo

Journal Article · Wed Aug 13 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Earth and Planetary Science Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.07.010· OSTI ID:1762851

Tikoo, Sonia M. ^[1]; Weiss, Benjamin P. ^[1]; Cassata, William S. ^[2]; Shuster, David L. ^[3]; Gattacceca, Jérôme ^[4]; Lima, Eduardo A. ^[1]; Suavet, Clément ^[1]; Nimmo, Francis ^[5]; Fuller, Michael D. ^[6]

Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Univ. Aix-Marseille (France)
Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States)

Recent analyses of Apollo samples have demonstrated that a core dynamo existed on the Moon between at least 4.25 and 3.56 billion years ago (Ga) with surface field intensities reaching ~70 μT. However, it is unknown when the Moon's magnetic field declined. Determining the temporal evolution of the dynamo is important because it constrains secular changes in power at the lunar core–mantle boundary and, by implication, the Moon's thermal and orbital evolution and the field generation mechanism. In this work, we present paleomagnetic data from several younger mare basalts which demonstrate that the surface magnetic field had declined precipitously to <~ 4μT by 3.19 Ga. It is currently unclear whether such a rapid decrease in field strength reflects either the cessation of the dynamo during this period or its persistence beyond 3.19 Ga in a drastically weakened state.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344

OSTI ID:: 1762851

Report Number(s):: LLNL-JRNL--701457; 833825

Journal Information:: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Journal Name: Earth and Planetary Science Letters Vol. 404; ISSN 0012-821X

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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