How to differentiate a rocky planet – insight from the basaltic volcanism of the Moon

The purpose of this project is to understand the evolution of the Moon’s mantle through time by deciphering the origin of the chemical characteristics of lunar basaltic rocks.

To achieve this goal, this project aims to:1) Establish a very precise time frame of the lunar volcanism using a large set of lunar basaltic materials, including volcanic glass beads that are suspected to be the most pristine melts from the mantle, very rare samples from Soviet Luna 16, 20 and 24 missions and forthcoming Chinese Chang’e 5 mission.2) Systematically determine contents of trace elements including Rare Earth Elements (REE) and halogen (F-Cl-Br-I) and Cl-Sr-Pb-Nd-Hf isotope ratios in the same dated samples. 3) Answer the following questions: (i) how many different chemical reservoirs are present in the lunar mantle, (ii) when did they form and (iii) what is the trace element budget of these reservoirs in particular the elusive KREEP (Potassium, REE and Phosphorus-rich) mantle source.The expected outcomes of this project are to: (1) better constrain the chemical evolution of the Moon’s mantle based on an original and comprehensive geochronological and geochemical dataset and (2) provide new insight into the differentiation process of rocky planets.

In addition this project will contribute to a better understanding of how mineral resources concentrate on rocky planets and assess whether the Moon is a possible source of valuable elements for emerging green technologies (Ti, REE).