No abstract

Ryder and Wood (1977) suggested that the lunar crust becomes more mafic with depth because the impact melts associated with the large Imbrium and Serenitatis basins are more mafic than the surface composition of the Moon. In this study, we reexamine the hypothesis that the crust becomes more mafic with depth; we analyze the composition of crater central peaks by using recent remote sensing data and combining the best practices of previous studies. We compute the mineralogy for 34 central peaks using (1) nine-band visible and near-infrared data from the Kaguya Multiband Imager, (2) an improved version of Hapke's radiative transfer model validated with spectra of lunar soils with well-known modal mineralogy, and (3) new crustal thickness models from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory data to examine the variation in composition with depth. We find that there is no increase in mafic mineral abundances with proximity to the crust/mantle boundary or with depth from the current lunar surface and, therefore, that the crust does not become more mafic with depth. We find that anorthosite with very low mafic abundance ("purest anorthosite" or PAN) is a minority constituent in these peaks, and there is no clear evidence of a distinct PAN-rich layer in the middle crust as previously proposed. The composition of most of the central peaks we analyze is more mafic than classically defined anorthosites with an average noritic anorthosite composition similar to that of the lunar surface.

We find that the reflectance of the lunar surface within 5 ° of latitude of the South Pole increases rapidly with decreasing temperature, near ~110K, behavior consistent with the presence of surface water iceThe North polar region does not show this behavior, nor do South polar surfaces at latitudes more than 5° from the pole. This South pole reflectance anomaly persists when analysis is limited to surfaces with slopes less than 10° to eliminate false detection due to the brightening effect of mass wasting, and also when the very bright south polar crater Shackleton is excluded from the analysis. We also find that south polar regions of permanent shadow that have been reported to be generally brighter at 1064 nm do not show anomalous reflectance when their annual maximum surface temperatures are too high to preserve water ice. This distinction is not observed at the North Pole. The reflectance excursion on surfaces with maximum temperatures below 110K is superimposed on a general trend of increasing reflectance with decreasing maximum temperature that is present throughout the polar regions in the north and south; we attribute this trend to a temperature or illumination-dependent space weathering effect (e.g. Hemingway et al. 2015). We also find a sudden increase in reflectance with decreasing temperature superimposed on the general trend at 200K and possibly at 300K. This may indicate the presence of other volatiles such as sulfur or organics. We identified and mapped surfaces with reflectances so high as to be unlikely to be part of an ice-free population. In this south we find a similar distribution found by Hayne et al. 2015 based on UV properties. In the north a cluster of pixels near that pole may represent a limited frost exposure. References.