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Iron Concentration, Lunar Surface

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Encyclopedia of Lunar Science

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Synonyms

FeO abundance; Ferrous content; Iron abundance; Iron content

Definition

On the Moon, iron is an important element that occurs in a variety of minerals such as pyroxene, olivine, ilmenite, and spinel. It is also a key element for studying the theories of lunar formation (Drake 1986; Lucey et al. 1995), understanding the Moon’s bulk composition and the stratigraphy of the lunar crust (Ryder and Wood 1977), and understanding the formation, distribution, and varieties of lunar mare basalts (Hiesinger et al. 2000; Lawrence et al. 2002). In principle, different basaltic flows in mare regions can be identified from their FeO and TiO2 signatures since each basaltic flow melting history may produce a unique chemistry (Hiesinger et al. 2000). Therefore, the iron concentration estimation of the Moon’s surface provides important information to discriminate the different geologic terrains (Jolliff et al. 2000; Bhatt et al. 2015).

These terrains are inferred to be the result of the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Zhiguo Meng

Authors
  1. Zhiguo Meng
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Correspondence to Zhiguo Meng .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Prairie View A&M University, Houston, TX, USA

    Brian Cudnik

Section Editor information

  1. Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep-space Exploration, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, PR China

    Yuanzhi Zhang

  2. College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China

    Shengbo Chen

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Meng, Z. (2019). Iron Concentration, Lunar Surface. In: Cudnik, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Lunar Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05546-6_206-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05546-6_206-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05546-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05546-6

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