On the age of KREEP

Abstract

Many lunar highland rocks have been extensively metamorphosed during the late heavy bombardment of the Moon 3.9–4.0 AE ago. Rubidium and other, more volatile elements were preferentially mobilized during this event, which resulted in a considerable scatter of RbSr model ages. This scatter can be considerably reduced by estimating the original Rb content on the basis of Sm or other, less mobile, incompatible elements. The principal uncertainty on the corrected model ages of 4.25–4.45 AE comes from the original Sm/Rb ratio. Highland rocks enriched in incompatible elements in most cases are mixtures between KREEP-basalt and other highland rock types. After corrections for Rb mobilization 3.9–4.0 AE ago, slight isotopic differences among KREEP-enriched rocks from different landing sites becomes noticeable. These differences correspond to different meteoritic groups as defined by Morgan et al. (1974). Apparently there existed slightly different KREEP basalt reservoirs, with formation ages ranging from 4.25 to 4.45 AE. These reservoirs were partly exposed through impacts of basin-forming planetesimals 3.9–4.0 AE ago. The resulting impact melts were contaminated with meteoritic material from the bombarding planetesimals. The 4.63 ± 0.1 AE RbSr isochron of trace element poor highland rocks (Schonfeld, 1976) is determined by a K,Rb- and Ba-rich component, which formed earlier and independently of KREEP basalts.