Petrology and provenance of Apollo 15 Station 6 core 15009 and its bearing on site geologyPetrographic and microprobe studies were conducted of six soil samples from six different levels of the 30-cm-deep single-drive tube core 15009 obtained from the regolith of the Apennine Front at Station 6 of the Apollo 15 site. A model for the near-surface stratigraphy of the site is constructed, with due account for the results of previous studies of surface and core soils. Highland rocks were found to account for 9 percent of the mineral and lithic fragments in core 15009. The observed correlation between crystalline breccia fragments and green glass indicate that the primitive regolith on the premare Apennine Front contained abundant crystalline breccia fragments that were mixed with puroclastic green glass added to that regolith early in the mare eruptive sequence. KREEP basalts were found to be the parent rocks for 40 percent of the core fragments. It is inferred that KREEP basalts of the Apennine Bench Formation underlie mare basalts at the site. Olivine-normative mare basalt fragments comprise only 14 percent of the core-15009 source rocks but are much more abundant away from the Front.
Document ID
19910057723
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Basu, A. (Indiana Univ. Bloomington, IN, United States)
Molinaroli, E. (Indiana Univ. Bloomington, IN, United States)
Blom, M. E. (Indiana University Bloomington, United States)
Wenthworth, S. J. (Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co. Houston, TX, United States)
Mckay, D. S. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)