Tektites - volcanic ejecta from the moon?

Abstract

The problem of the origin of the enigmatic tektites is still unsolved. The two leading hypotheses - viz., ejecta from terrestrial impacts, and ejecta from lunar volcanoes or lunar impacts, each encounters serious difficulties. The former has ballistic and water content difficulties, while the latter has some compositional difficulties, especially in the trace elements, as determined from the returned samples. It is possible that the latter problem may be met through lunar volcanic ejecta from sites suggesting more differentiation than the majority of the Moon. That such features may exist is suggested from the identity of some granitic material in the returned rocks and soil samples implying fairly sizable source regions on the Moon. The rare terrestrial strewn tektite fields require restrictive ballistic trajectories from the Moon. Calculations reveal that ellipses of varying, decreasing sizes which depend on velocity of vertical ejection from which ejecta will intersect the earth at low-entrance angles occur on the nearside of the Moon. Reasonable velocities were chosen (2.55 to 3.0 km s−1) and these ellipses circumscribe areas with longitudes between 30 and 50° east and latitudes between 7° north and south of the Moon's equator. These areas were searched for evidence of volcanism. As tektites have compositions ranging from acidic (major tektites) to basic (micro-tektites) contents of silica (SiO2) both acidic and basic volcanic features were sought. Since tektites range in age from about 30 million to 700000 yr old, they imply recent volcanism. Lunar Transient Phenomena (LTP) and data from various Apollo missions indicate that mild internal activity may still be occurring on the Moon. LTP sites are logical sources to investigate, of which four occur within the above delimited regions. These and their surroundings were examined and a number of possible explosive volcanism sites were found. These sites are identified and discussed after a review of the manifestations found from the various kinds of terrestrial volcanism for which lunar counterparts were sought.