Slowly Cooled, High-Titanium and Very-Low Titanium Basalt Clasts from Apollo Core 73001

The Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) program recently processed Apollo 17 double drive tube, 73002/1. The double drive tube is composed of two core samples: 73002 represents the top 35 cm, and 73001 represents the bottom 35 cm of the core. During preliminary examination (PE) of 73001, ~220 clasts greater than 4 mm in size were identified and, of these, 31 clasts were initially characterized as basalt fragments. Here, we employ a detailed 2D and 3D investigation of two basalt clasts initially identified during PE as a high-Ti basalt and a low-Ti basalt. We seek to determine the petrogenesis of basalt clasts from the core and to compare them to previously characterized Apollo 17 basalts. Furthermore, the studied basalt clasts provide the opportunity to evaluate the diversity of lunar volcanism sampled at Station 3 during the Apollo 17 mission.
Recent work has highlighted the utility of coupling traditional 2D methods with 3D measurements to better understand the crystallization and degassing histories of lunar lava flows. At the upcoming conference, we will present a detailed study of the mineralogy, petrology, microstructures, and 3D morphology of these basalt clasts to shed light on their magmatic, volcanic, and post-eruptive histories. We show that the samples represent a characteristic high-Ti basalt clast, and a new, very-low-Ti (VLT)-type basalt clast, and that both samples cooled slowly in their respective lava flows.