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Procellarum KREEP Terrane.Ó Mark A Lunar and Planetary Science XXX 1547.pdf Thermal modeling of mare volcanism and the ÒProcellarum KREEP Terrane.Ó Mark A. Wieczorek1 and Roger J. Phillips; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, Box 1169, 1 Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO, 63130; 1email: [email protected]. Introduction. Although there are a wide assortment of [5; Korotev, this volume] (based on the composition of thermal history models for the Moon that purport to ac- Imbrium ejecta) allow for over 30 kilometers of KREEP- count for the origin of mare basalts [1, 2], none of these basalt within this terrane. The rest of the lunar crust in our models can account for the fact that the bulk of lunar vol- model is assumed to have a concentration of heat produc- canism occurred on the nearside of the Moon. Though it ing elements represented by the Òfarside highlandsÓ ob- has been widely claimed that the ÒthickerÓ farside crust tained from the Apollo gamma-ray experiment [6], and the could have hindered the eruption of basaltic magmas, the mantle heat production was taken from [7]. As an initial thinned crust beneath the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin condition, the KREEP-basalt layer was set to its liquidus does not show evidence of extensive mare volcanism. This temperature (~1448 K; [8]), the top of the mantle was set basin does contain lava ponds (about 10% by area), but to its solidus (~1480 K; [9]), and the temperature within the amount of volcanism that occurred in SPA is nowhere the mantle followed an adiabat (increasing in temperature close to approaching that of the nearside mare. Addition- by ~50 K to the center of the Moon). ally, dual-layered crustal thickness models [3] suggest Our thermal models are simple in that they are axisym- that the farside crust may not be substantially thicker than metric and that they only consider heat transport by con- the nearside crust. duction. Although convection may have occurred in the The new Lunar Prospector gamma-ray data [4] suggest lunar mantle, this fact would not likely change out con- a different interpretation for the distribution of mare basal- clusions. In fact, if there were a paucity of heat sources in tic volcanism. About 80% of mare volcanism by area is the lunar mantle and core it could be argued that the man- found to occur within an anomalous geochemical province tle should be stable against convection (see [2]). By heat- that is enriched in KREEP (specifically, KREEP-basalt, ing the mantle from the top down (as opposed from or the intrusive or differentiated equivalent) [Wieczorek et within), convective instabilities will additionally be al., Jolliff et al., Korotev; this volume]. The areal extent of lessened. As an extreme scenario, we have run models with this province (the ÒProcellarum KREEP TerraneÓ) is de- no mantle heat production, and though the amount of melt- fined by the Lunar Prospector gamma-ray data, and en- ing that occurs is decreased, our conclusions below compasses much of Oceanus Procellarum and Mare Im- would not be altered. brium (see figure 1). The fact that mare volcanism is found Our models do not include the temperature or pressure to occur predominantly within this geochemical province effects on the thermal conductivity or specific heat. We do suggests to us that an intimate relationship exists be- simulate melting, though, by using the mantle liquidus tween the two. We show below that lunar magmatism may and solidus as determined by [9]. Melting was assumed to have been a phenomenon local to this province, and that be spread linearly across the solidus-liquidus temperature the high concentration of heat producing elements found interval with a heat of fusion of 680 kJ/kg. Though this there may be able to account for the distribution of mare thermal model is admittedly simple, nonetheless, it should volcanism in both space and time. demonstrate to first order the dramatic thermal conse- quences of the postulated Procellarum KREEP terrane. Results. Figure 2 shows a plot of the fraction of material that is melted as a function of depth beneath the Procel- larum KREEP terrane at times of 4, 3.5, 2.5, 1, and zero billions years before the present for the above model. Par- tial melting in the mantle occurs because the KREEP- basalt layer becomes superheated above its liquidus and heats the mantle from the top down. This plot shows that partial melting in the mantle was widespread at 500 Ma, and that the maximum depth of melting increased with time to about 600 km at the present. This type of melting his- tory is consistent to first order with the history of lunar volcanism. Namely, mare volcanism may have commenced Figure 1. Image showing the areal distribution of the Procellarum as early as 4.3 Ga ago, significantly tapered off around 3 KREEP terrane overlaid on a lunar shaded relief map. Ga, and ended around 900 Ma [10]. Additionally, mare basalts are believed to have been derived from depths Lunar Thermal Modeling. In order to test the relation- shallower than 500 km [11], again consistent with our ship between the Procellarum KREEP terrane and mare model. volcanism, we have run some simple thermal models. Our As an additional check to the validity of our results, approach is new in that we do not assume a symmetric we have computed the present day surface heat flux pre- distribution of heat producing elements within the Moon. dicted from this model. Figure 3 shows our model results, Specifically, as a start, we place a ten-kilometer-thick layer as well as the measured surface heat flux at the Apollo 15 of KREEP-basalt at the base of the crust within the Pro- and 17 sites. It is seen that our model is consistent with cellarum KREEP terrane (here approximated by a spherical the Apollo measurements, and that the higher observed cap 1200-km in radius). We consider ten kilometers of heat flux at the Apollo 15 site (as compared to Apollo 17) KREEP-basalt to be conservative, in that the models of is a direct consequence of this site being closer to the Lunar and Planetary Science XXX 1547.pdf MARE VOLCANISM: M. A. Wieczorek and R. J. Phillips Procellarum KREEP terrane. the premise that these melts were multiply saturated with olivine and pyroxene in their source region [11]. 1.0 Our simple model suggests that the KREEP-basalt 4 Ga layer should have been molten for a few billion years (see 0.8 Figure 2). Though our models most likely overestimate the 3.5 Ga internal temperatures of the Moon (since we have ne- glected solid state convention, as well as the heat ad- 0.6 vected by magma transport), we believe that a molten 2.5 Ga KREEP-basalt layer within the crust would persist until 0.4 at least 3.9 Ga (the age of the Imbrium impact; see also 1 Ga [13]). Ryder [14] has determined that the age of the Apollo Fraction Melted Fraction 0.2 15 KREEP-basalts and Imbrium ejecta are practically in- Present distinguishable. Based on this observation he has sug- gested that the Imbrium impact may have ÒinducedÓ 0.0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 KREEP-basalt volcanism. In concordance with Ryder, we Depth Below Surface of PKT (km) suggest that KREEP-basalt volcanism occurred because the Imbrium impact excavated into an extensive molten Figure 2. Plot showing the fraction of material melted beneath the ÒKREEP-basaltÓ magma chamber. center of the Procellarum KREEP terrane at times of 4, 3.5, 2.5, 1 A molten KREEP-basalt magma chamber also explains and zero billion years before the present. why the search for a solid protolith to ÒLKFMÓ (Low-K Fra Mauro Basalt) has not made much progress [15]. 35 ÒLKFMÓ is a mafic impact melt, most of which (if not all) are believed to have originated during the Imbrium impact 30 event [16]. We believe that the reason a solid protolith to ) 2 ÒLKFMÓ has not been found is that the protolith was 25 initially molten (as originally suggested by [15]). The ÒLKFMÓ mafic impact melt breccias in our model formed Apollo 15 20 during the Imbrium impact event by the mixing of molten KREEP-basalt with excavated mantle and feldspathic 15 crustal materials [5; Korotev, this volume]. Apollo 17 Given the size of the zone of partial to complete melt- Heat Flux (mW/m 10 ing beneath the Procellarum KREEP terrane, much igne- ous processing between the crust, mantle, and the 5 KREEP-basalt layer must have occurred. We believe that 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180 the Mg-rich nature of KREEP-basalt originated from mix- Degrees from Center of PKT ing forsteritic mantle olivine with urKREEP. The Mg- suite rocks in our model would represent differentiation Figure 3. Plot showing the modeled present day surface heat flux products of the molten KREEP-basalt layer. as a function of distance from the center of the Procellarum Although our thermal model appears to be consistent KREEP terrane. Also shown are the Apollo heat flow measure- ments (gray boxes) at their approximate distance from the PKT. with the bulk of lunar knowledge, one potentially damag- The dotted boxes represent the heat flow measurements after cor- ing observation is the existence of a mascon over the Im- rection for the mare/highlands-boundary heat flow enhancement of brium basin. This mascon likely represents uncompen- [12]. sated surface basalt flows, and/or super-isostatic Moho uplift.
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