Discovery of moganite in a lunar meteorite as a trace of H2O ice in the Moon's regolith

• Main Authors: Kayama, Masahiro, Tomioka, Naotaka, Ohtani, Eiji, Seto, Yusuke, Nagaoka, Hiroshi, Goetze, Jens, Miyake, Akira, Ozawa, Shin, Sekine, Toshimori, Miyahara, Masaaki, Tomeoka, Kazushige, Matsumoto, Megumi, Shoda, Naoki, Hirao, Naohisa, Kobayashi, Takamichi
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018
• Subjects: Aitken; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/handle_kernel/90004924; http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/repository/90004924.pdf

Moganite, a monoclinic SiO2 phase, has been discovered in a lunar meteorite. Silica micrograins occur as nanocrystalline aggregates of mostly moganite and occasionally coesite and stishovite in the KREEP (high potassium, rare-earth element, and phosphorus)-like gabbroic-basaltic breccia NWA 2727, although these grains are seemingly absent in other lunar meteorites. We interpret the origin of these grains as follows: alkaline water delivery to the Moon via carbonaceous chondrite collisions, fluid capture during impact-induced brecciation, moganite precipitation from the captured H2O at pH 9.5 to 10.5 and 363 to 399 K on the sunlit surface, and meteorite launch from the Moon caused by an impact at 8 to 22 GPa and >673 K. On the subsurface, this captured H2O may still remain as ice at estimated bulk content of >0.6 weight %. This indicates the possibility of the presence of abundant available water resources underneath local sites of the host bodies within the Procellarum KREEP and South Pole Aitken terranes.