Lunar highland crustal models based on iron concentrations - Isostasy and center-of-mass displacementData is introduced on the iron concentrations of the lunar surface which have been refined by means of convolution corrections to restore the spatial resolution and contrast lost by the omnidirectional spectrometer. This refined iron data is synthesized with other orbital seismic, and lunar sample data to derive highland crustal density and thickness, and isostasy and lunar centers of mass models are examined in light of this new information. A model is developed by which highland crustal density is calculated for each highland region from orbital observations of Fe, Mg and Ti concentrations. The results of this model are presented numerically and graphically for 35 highland and two non-highland regions. Density and thickness results are then applied to two long-standing lunar problems: (1) the nature of highland isostasy, which is shown to be controlled by crustal thickness rather than density, and (2) the separation of the moon's mass and figure centers, which is shown to be due to the crustal thickness difference between the lunar near and far sides.
Document ID
19820038752
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Authors
Haines, E. L. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Metzger, A. E. (California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA, United States)