The depths of the Mare basalt source region

Abstract

Chemical data for the parental magmas of the nine known VLT Array I pyroclastic glasses show statistically significant trends due to olivine (∼Fo83) control during their formation by partial melting. The compositional scatter is largely due to compositional variations in the source regions on the ±1% level. This compositional scatter is small when one considers that the scale of the source region is up to 1000 km, but is sufficient to make positive identification of the residual phase(s) in the source regions difficult. Nevertheless, when the effects of the scatter are properly modeled, it is relatively clear that olivine is the residual phase in the source region. Hence these data and additional constraints indicate that the source regions are at shallow depths in the moon.