Abstract. In light of global remotely sensed data, the igneous crust of the Moon can no longer be viewed as a simple, globally stratified cumulus structure, composed of a flotation upper crust of anorthosite underlain by progressively more mafic rocks and a residual-melt (KREEP) sandwich horizon near the base of the lower crust. Instead, global geochemical information derived from Clementinc multispectral data and Lunar Prospector gamma-ray data reveals at least three distinct provinces whose geochemistry and petrologic history make them geologically unique: (1) the Procellarum KREEP Terrane (PKT), (2)

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— Mineralogy, major element compositions of minerals, and elemental and oxygen isotopic compositions of the whole rock attest to a lunar origin of the meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 032, an unbrecciated basalt found in October 1999. The rock consists predominantly of olivine, pyroxene and chromite phenocrysts, set in a crystalline groundmass of feldspar, pyroxene, ilmenite, troilite and trace metal. Whole‐rock shock veins comprise a minor, but ubiquitous portion of the rock. Undulatory to mosaic extinction in olivine and pyroxene phenocrysts and micro‐faults in groundmass and phenocrysts also are attributed to shock. Several geochemical signatures taken together indicate unambiguously that NWA 032 originated from the Moon. The most diagnostic criteria include whole‐rock oxygen isotopic composition and ratios of Fe/Mn in the whole rock, olivine, and pyroxene. A lunar origin is documented further by the presence of Fe‐metal, troilite, and ilmenite; zoning to extremely Fe‐rich compositions in pyroxene; the ferrous oxidation state of all Fe in pyroxene; and the rare earth element (REE) pattern with a well‐defined negative europium anomaly. This rock is similar in major element chemistry to basalts from Apollo 12 and 15, but is enriched in light REE and has an unusually high Th/Sm ratio. Some Apollo 14 basalts yield a closer match to NWA 032 in REE patterns, but have higher concentrations of Al2O3. Ar‐Ar step release results are complex, but yield a whole‐rock age of ˜2.8 Ga, suggesting that NWA 032 was extruded at 2.8 Ga or earlier. This rock may be the youngest sample of mare basalt collected to date. Noble gas concentrations combined with previously collected radionuclide data indicate that the meteorite exposure history is distinct from currently recognized lunar meteorites. In short, the geochemical and petrographic features of NWA 032 are not matched by Apollo or Luna samples, nor by previously identified lunar meteorites, indicating that it originates from a previously unsampled mare deposit. Detailed assessment of petrographic features, olivine zoning, and thermodynamic modelling indicate a relatively simple cooling and crystallization history for NWA 032. Chromite‐spinel, olivine, and pyroxene crystallized as phenocrysts while the magma cooled no faster than 2 °C/h based on the polyhedral morphology of olivine. Comparison of olivine size with crystal growth rates and preserved Fe‐Mg diffusion profiles in olivine phenocrysts suggest that olivine was immersed in the melt for no more than 40 days. Plumose textures in groundmass pyroxene, feldspar, and ilmenite, and Fe‐rich rims on the phenocrysts formed during rapid crystallization (cooling rates ˜20 to 60 °C/h) after eruption.

[1] Investigating mare basalt compositions, at both the sample and remote-sensing level for the Apollo and Luna mare sites, reveals the need for a more complex regression procedure than previously proposed in order to extract accurate TiO 2 concentrations from Clementine spectral reflectance (CSR) data. The TiO 2 algorithm of Lucey and coworkers is modified by using two different sets of regression parameters to relate measured regolith compositions from sampling locations to the CSR properties of these sites. One regression trend fits the majority of Apollo data, and the second regression is a fit to the Apollo 11, Luna 16, and Luna 24 data, which were considered to be anomalous in previous TiO 2 calibrations. These three sites have unusually low albedo compared to other mare landing sites, and some 32% of nearside mare regions appear to share this characteristic. Possible reasons for these differences related to proximity of the other sites to mare-highland boundaries are discussed. Using the dual-regression method, we find (1) that TiO 2 concentrations calculated for the basaltic landing sites faithfully reproduce a bimodal distribution as seen in the sample data, (2) that when coupled with the effects of other thermal neutron absorbers, Ti concentrations are more consistent with observed epithermal-to-thermal neutron-flux ratios than are previous Clementine-based derivations of TiO 2 for basaltic regions, and (3) that basalts of intermediate-TiO 2 concentrations occur most frequently in the Oceanus Procellarum region and that these intermediate concentrations appear to be inherent to the flows underlying the regolith and presumably to the basalt source regions. Citation: Gillis, J. J., B. L. Jolliff, and R. C. Elphic, A revised algorithm for calculating TiO 2 from Clementine UVVIS data: A synthesis of rock, soil, and remotely sensed TiO 2 concentrations,