Shock metamorphism of lunar and terrestrial basalts

Lonar Crater (India) basalt and lunar basalt 75035 were shock loaded under controlled laboratory conditions up to 1000 kbar, generally in a CO/CO2 (1:1) environment evacuated to 10 to the minus seventh power torr. The Kieffer et al. (1976) classification scheme of progressive shock metamorphism is found to apply to lunar basalts. The major shock features of the five classes that span the range 0 to 1000 kbar are described. Only three out of 152 basalt specimens show shock effects in their natural state as severe as Class 2 features. The scarcity of shocked basalt hand samples in contrast to the abundance of shock-produced agglutinates and homogeneous glass spheres in the lunar regolith indicates the dominant role of micrometeorite impact in the evolution of the lunar regolith. The overall glass content in asteroidal and Mercurian regoliths is considered.