A sample of the Moon’s far side retrieved by Chang’e-6 contains 2.83-billion-year-old basalt
Remote sensing observations have shown that the far side of the Moon (lunar farside) has different geology and rock composition to those of the nearside, including the abundances of potassium, rare earth elements, and phosphorus (collectively known as KREEP). The Chang'e-6 (CE-6) spacecraft collected samples from the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin on the farside and brought them to Earth. We used lead-lead and rubidium-strontium isotope systems to date low-titanium basalt in a CE-6 sample, finding a consistent age of 2830 (±5) million years. We interpret this as the date of volcanism in SPA and incorporate it into lunar crater chronology. Strontium, neodymium, and lead isotopes indicate that the volcanic magma was from a lunar mantle source depleted in incompatible elements and containing almost no KREEP component.
Authors
- Long Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5271-8554)
- Peng‐Li He
- Qing Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0714-4651)
- Shan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1005-3216)
- J. W. Head (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2013-560X)
- Jingyou Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4199-5089)
- Qin Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8562-9737)
- Linli Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8685-4792)
- Ya‐Nan Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7677-9696)
- Xiaoju Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5240-3173)
- Yiping Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8262-4850)
- Zexian Cui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9293-5369)
- Yuqi Qian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7119-5501)
- Fanglu Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5312-3416)
- Fangfang Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5398-7978)
- C. R. Neal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0705-3490)
- Yanqiang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5577-0529)
- Jintuan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6682-9036)
- Zhiming Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0617-6449)
- Bo Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0781-9655)
- Yi‐Gang Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9531-7208)
- Jianxi Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9002-4457)
- Haiyang Xian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8602-3750)
- Zhiyong Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5026-6937)
- Le Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9161-0653)
- Chengyuan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0681-2344)
- Yonghua Cao
Institutions
- University of Notre Dame (US)
- Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
- Providence College (US)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Brown University (US)
- Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (CN)
- China University of Geosciences (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2024-11-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt1093
- Citations
- 112
- Primary Topic
- Planetary Science and Exploration
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 37.13