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Re-Examination of the Lunar Magma Ocean Cumulate Overturn Hypothesis: Melting Or Mixing Is Required

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Earth and Planetary Science Letters 196 (2002) 239^249 www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl Re-examination of the lunar magma ocean cumulate overturn hypothesis: melting or mixing is required Linda T. Elkins Tanton a;Ã, James A. Van Orman b, Bradford H. Hager a, Timothy L. Grove a a Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 54-1212, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA b Geophysical Laboratory and Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA Received 4 July 2001; received in revised form 5 December 2001; accepted 8 December 2001 Abstract There is a long-standing hypothesis that the last fraction of the lunar magma ocean crystallized into a layer of dense, Ti-rich cumulate minerals at shallow depths (V100 km) early in the moon’s history. Many questions remain about the stability of these high-Ti cumulates. It has been suggested that the cumulates subsequently sank deep into the moon because of gravitational instability, but high-Ti material is required at shallower depths by 3.5 Ga to create the high-Ti mare basalts and picritic glasses. The high-Ti material may have re-erupted from depth, or some or all of it may have remained at shallow depths throughout lunar history. Data on phase stabilities, bulk compositions, densities, and temperatures of melting and crystallizing in addition to results from numerical modeling suggest that the high-Ti cumulates would sink only under highly specific conditions. Five scenarios for sinking high-Ti cumulate materials are examined, and only two are found plausible. In particular, it is found that simple sinking of solidified high-Ti cumulates is unlikely because the temperature at which the cumulates solidify is low, and viscosity under these conditions is very high. It is, however, possible that high-Ti cumulates mixed with a substantial fraction of olivine would have viscosity low enough to allow them to sink as solids. Further, because clinopyroxene and ilmenite melt in a ratio of 2:1, remelted high-Ti cumulates would be negatively buoyant and sink as liquids, percolating downward through the underlying mantle and beginning to recrystallize ilmenite at 200 km depth, making a hybrid, heterogeneous mantle. ß 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Moon; magma oceans; cumulates; lunar interior; titanium 1. Introduction The moon’s interior is thought to consist of cumulate zones produced by early (V4.55 Ga) magma ocean di¡erentiation. Models of lunar * Corresponding author. magma ocean crystallization [1^4] suggest that Tel.: +1-617-253-2876; Fax: +1-617-253-7102. the deepest cumulates (300^400 km) are primarily E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.T. Elkins Tanton), 3 [email protected] (J.A. Van Orman), [email protected] ma¢c, olivine +/ low-calcium pyroxene that (B.H. Hager), [email protected] (T.L. Grove). crystallized near or sank to the base of the magma 0012-821X / 02 / $ ^ see front matter ß 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0012-821X(01)00613-6 EPSL 6107 2-4-02 240 L.T. Elkins Tanton et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 196 (2002) 239^249 ocean, while the uppermost cumulates are primar- The multiple-saturation depths and saturation ily plagioclase, which £oated upward and formed phases of picritic glasses and mare basalts contain an anorthositic crust. Highly fractionated, late- clues about the location of high-Ti material in the stage liquid was trapped between the deep ma¢c moon. Eight experimental multiple-saturation cumulates and the anorthositic crust. Depending points are shown in Fig. 2. Experimentally deter- on the model composition used, ilmenite begins to mined multiple-saturation points indicate the ap- crystallize from the late-stage liquid when 89^95% proximate depth and temperature of melt segre- of the magma ocean has solidi¢ed (P. Hess and J. gation from its source, and the phases at multiple Longhi, personal communication). Depending on saturation are thought to indicate the residual the thickness of anorthosite crust assumed, ilmen- source mineralogy. The mare basalts thus far in- ite crystallization would therefore begin at a depth vestigated all have multiple-saturation points shal- between 150 and 100 km at a temperature be- lower than 300 km depth, while the picritic glasses tween 1180 and 1125‡C [2,5]. Crystallization of all have origination depths greater than 250 km. ilmenite+clinopyroxene þ plagioclase would con- The green glass multiple-saturation points indi- tinue until KREEP, the ¢nal liquid di¡erentiate, cate a source mineralogy of olivine+orthopyrox- crystallizes beneath the anorthositic crust. The ene, and so, surprisingly, do the high-Ti glasses: KREEP model age of 4.42 Ga [6] is thought to none of the high-Ti glasses yet studied has ilmen- mark the completion of magma ocean crystalliza- ite on its liquidus at any pressure. If the high-Ti tion. glasses were the result of deep remelting of sunken Once crystallized, the high-Ti cumulates would high-Ti cumulates (e.g. [1]), then each should have a density of 3700^3800 kg/m3, compared to show high-Ti cumulate mineralogy on its liquidus. the underlying olivine+pyroxene mantle density of The absence of ilmenite on the liquidus of any of about 3300 kg/m3. Ringwood and Kesson [1] pro- the high-Ti compositions means either that the posed that because the solid ilmenite+clinopyrox- melt fraction was high enough to exhaust the ene cumulate layers were denser than the under- high-Ti phase in the source, or that the Ti content lying, less evolved olivine- and pyroxene-bearing was added as a later solid assimilant, which would cumulates, the ilmenite+clinopyroxene cumulates not be re£ected in experimental phase equilibrium sank into the underlying cumulate pile after crys- results. tallization. If the high-Ti component sank into the The green glass compositions also provide evi- deep moon, then the question of how and where dence for the spatial distribution of Ti in the the high-Ti picritic glasses and mare basalts ob- moon. The compositional trends of the Apollo tained their titanium component remains. Ring- 14B green glasses show increasing titanium from wood and Kesson [1] and other investigators assimilation simultaneous with fractional crystal- (e.g. [2,3,7]) hypothesized that the sunken high- lization of olivine. Therefore the Apollo 14B data Ti cumulates subsequently remelted and contrib- require high-Ti material for assimilation shallower uted to the formation of high-Ti mare basalts and than their depth of multiple saturation (480 picritic glasses. Other investigators have chal- km)[10] at between 3 and 4 Ga. lenged the hypothesis of deeply foundered, re- Questions remain, however, about the processes melted high-Ti cumulates on the basis that high- of high-Ti cumulate redistribution; most impor- Ti melts are not buoyant below 200^300 km depth tantly, whether it is possible for solid or liquid in the moon [8,9] (as shown in Fig. 1); paradoxi- cumulates to sink. Zhong et al. [7] suggested cally, the multiple-saturation depths for the high- that the high-Ti cumulates sank to the core^man- Ti picritic glasses are all below this depth limit. tle boundary, and then rose, melted, and erupted Because of the di⁄culty of eruption from their at the time of mare basalt genesis. This mecha- depths of multiple saturation, we believe the mul- nism would probably leave high-Ti material at tiple-saturation points are recording di¡erent in- shallow mantle depths to accommodate the pic- formation for the high-Ti glasses than they do for ritic glass compositional trends, and could nicely the low-Ti picritic compositions. explain the predominance of mare basalts on the EPSL 6107 2-4-02 L.T. Elkins Tanton et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 196 (2002) 239^249 241 Fig. 1. Lunar depth versus density curves for liquid compositions and two lunar mantle models [2,3]. The vertical scale shows pressure in GPa and corresponding depth in the moon. High-density spikes above 100 km representing solidi¢ed high-Ti cumu- lates have been removed from the mantle models. Multiple-saturation points are plotted at their experimental pressure and calcu- lated density (A15C Green = Elkins Tanton and Grove, in preparation; A17 VLT = [30]; A15A Green = Elkins Tanton and Grove, in preparation; A14 VLT = [31]; A14B Green = [10]; A14 Black = [9]; A17 Orange = [32]; A15 Red = [18]). The black glass density curve is from [8]. The green glass density curve is from [15], and our calculations. Other liquid curves calculated as de- scribed in text. near side of the moon, but questions remain and only two are found likely to allow signi¢cant about re-erupting dense high-Ti liquids, and, volumes of high-Ti material to relocate deeper more importantly, about the initial fall of the cu- into the moon. mulates. In this study we examine several processes that may have allowed the shallow, late-crystallizing 2. Models high-Ti material to sink into the deep moon. Us- ing ¢nite element numerical £uid dynamic models Addressing the possibility of sinking solids or of the moon’s interior and data on phase stability, downward-percolating liquids requires models of bulk compositions, densities, and temperatures of the host mantle density and viscosity, the high-Ti melting and crystallizing, we show that the con- cumulate mineralogy, density, liquidus and sol- ditions that would allow high-Ti cumulates to idus temperatures, and viscosity, as well as expres- sink are restrictive. Five scenarios are examined, sions for density as a function of depth and com- EPSL 6107 2-4-02 242 L.T. Elkins Tanton et al.
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