Translucent glass globules on the Moon
Translucent glass globules on the Moon
复制标题
月球上的半透明玻璃球
DOI：
10.1016/j.scib.2021.11.004
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发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
18.9
通讯作者：
Cui Jun
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Xiao Zhiyong;Yan Pan;Wu Bo;Ding Chunyu;Li Yuan;Chang Yiren;Xu Rui;Wu Yunhua;Wang Yichen;Ma Yizhen;Cui Jun
Glass is ubiquitous in lunar regolith, and volcanism and hypervelocity impacts are the major mechanisms of forming lunar glasses. Volcanic glasses on the Moon occur as quenched skin of basaltic rocks or as glass spherules in pyroclastic deposits. Lunar volcanic glass spherules are less than 1 mm in diameters, and most are less than 300 μm [1]. Impact glasses on the Moon are formed by cooling of impact melt and/or condensation of impact vapor, and impact glass spherules have rotational shapes, smooth surfaces, and largely clast-free interiors [2]. Recognized impact glass spherules on the Moon are dominantly sub-millimeter in sizes, and few are up to 8 mm in diameter [3]. Glass spherules record important information about the mantle composition and the history of lunar volcanism and impact cratering [4]. Transparent and translucent glasses on the Moon are less than 1 mm in diameters, and larger ones are dark and opaque [5]. Hitherto discovered macro-sized glass globules on the Moon (up to 4 cm in diameter) are opaque impact glass (Fig. 1 a, b) that usually contains hollows and lithic clasts [6].Anorthosites are abundant in the lunar highland, and petrophysical modelling revealed that lunar anorthosites are excellent raw materials to form macroscopic transparent glasses [7]. Impact cratering in the lunar highland can form widespread anorthositic melt, some of which was shocked to temperatures way above the liquidus, so instant cooling could form distal glass ejecta. For comparison, tektites and microtektites on Earth are distal impact glasses sourced from highly shocked shallow targets [8]. Although their detailed formation mechanism (s) in terms of shock physics
