Delineating the major KREEP-bearing terranes on the moon with global measurements of absolute thorium abundances
Conference
·
OSTI ID:329552
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Lunar Research Inst., Gilroy, CA (United States)
- Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees, Toulouse (France)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
The Lunar Prospector (LP) Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) has been used to map the global composition of thorium on the lunar surface. Previous LP results of relative thorium abundances demonstrated that thorium is highly concentrated in and around the nearside western maria and less so in the South Pole Aitken (SPA) basin. Using new detector modeling results and a larger data set, the authors present here a global map of absolute thorium abundances on a 2{degree} by 2{degree} equal-area pixel scale. Because thorium is a tracer of KREEP-rich material, these data provide fundamental information regarding the locations and importance of terranes that are rich in KREEP bearing materials.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 329552
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR--99-328; CONF-990303--; ON: DE99002047
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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