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Bombardment history of the Moon constrained by crustal porosity

Nature Geoscience volume 15, pages 531–535 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The formation and evolution of the terrestrial planets were shaped by a bombardment of large impactors in a cluttered early Solar System. However, various surface processes degrade impact craters, and the early impact history of the Moon and the ages of its ancient impact basins remain uncertain. Here we show that the porosity of the lunar crust, generated by the cumulative crustal processing of impacts, can be used to determine the Moon’s bombardment history. We use a numerical model constrained by gravity data to simulate the generation of porosity by basin-forming impacts and the subsequent removal by smaller impacts and overburden pressure. We find that, instead of steadily increasing over the history of the Moon, lunar crustal porosity was largely generated early in lunar evolution when most basins formed and, on average, has decreased after that time. Using the Moon as a proxy for the terrestrial planets, we find that the terrestrial planets experienced periods of high crustal porosity early in their evolution. Our modelled porosities also provide an independent constraint on the chronological sequence of basin-forming impacts. Our results suggest that the inner solar system was subject to double the number of smaller impacts producing craters exceeding 20 km in diameter than has been previously estimated from traditional crater-counting analyses, whereas the bombardment record for the lunar basins (>200 km in diameter) is complete. This implies a limited late delivery of volatiles and siderophile elements to the terrestrial planets by impactors.

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Fig. 1: Observed lunar highlands crustal properties.
Fig. 2: Modelled lunar highlands crustal porosities.
Fig. 3: Comparison of the relationship between observed porosity and crater number density for the lunar highlands and our compaction model.

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Data availability

Source data are provided with this paper and also available through Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6515777.

Code availability

The code used to model lunar crustal porosity is available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank F. Nimmo for his helpful discussion and for providing the GRAIL-derived porosity data. Statistical support was provided by data science specialists S. Worthington and J. Liu at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University. This research was supported by the NASA Lunar Data Analysis Program grant NNX16AN62G.

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Author notes

  1. Deceased: H. Jay Melosh.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ya Huei Huang & Jason M. Soderblom

  2. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    David A. Minton & H. Jay Melosh

  3. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Masatoshi Hirabayashi

  4. Department of Geosciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Masatoshi Hirabayashi

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  1. Ya Huei Huang
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Contributions

Conceptualization was by J.M.S, D.A.M. and H.J.M; methodology was by Y.H.H., J.M.S. and M.H.; supervision was by J.M.S. and D.A.M.; writing of the original draft was by Y.H.H and J.M.S.; review and editing were done by D.A.M., M.H., H.J.M, Y.H.H. and J.M.S.; funding acquisition was handled by D.A.M., J.M.S. and H.J.M.

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Correspondence to Ya Huei Huang.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Boris Ivanov, Zhiyong Xiao and Tiantian Liu for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Tamara Goldin and Stefan Lachowycz, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Statistical analysis of the relationship between observed porosity and crater counting ages.

(Left) Linear least square fitted relationship between the crater-counting age and observed porosity of lunar highlands basins for (a) all 29 dated basins, (b) dated basins excluding basins located within SP-A, and (c) the youngest basins (b) dated basins excluding basins located within SP-A, and (c) the youngest basins (<4.11 Ga). (Right) Normalized probability of the slope of the data shown in the left panels, from 50,000 bootstrapping samples with 95% BCa (bias-corrected and accelerated), confidence intervals. The BCa approach accounts for the non-Gaussian distribution of the slopes. We find no statistically significant relationship between basin age and porosity when considering all dated basins and all non SP-A dated basins (a slope of zero is within the 95% confidence intervals in panels a and b), though the non-SPA dated basin slope distribution is skewed and the mean is far from a slope of zero. When we only consider the youngest basins (<4.11 Ga), however, we find a statistically significant relationship between basin age and porosity (Panel C).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Number density maps of lunar craters.

These maps are similar to Fig. 1b, but use with different minimum crater diameters 200 (a), 300 (b) and 400 (c) km. These are compared with the observed porosity (d, bottom right, which is identical to Fig. 1a).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Model residual maps.

(a) Observed porosity, (b) modeled porosity, (c) ≥ 2 | 𝜎| model porosity residual (a minus b), (d) grain density (kg/m3), (e) observed N(20) and (f) observed bulk density. Red and blue data points indicate grid points for which model residuals are ≥ 2 | 𝜎| (~2.0% porosity). Yellow data points represent regions with anomalous estimates of grain density, mostly found at distances of ≤500 km from mare–highland boundaries and the Smythii region. Cyan data points indicate regions up range of oblique impacts, such as Moscoviense, Orientale, and Humboltianum, yielding higher porosity and lower bulk density values. Orange data points correlate with regions of distal ejecta (3–3.5 radii) of Orientale Basin, exhibiting low porosity and smaller N(20) values. The color data points correspond to the same data shown in Fig. 3.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Grain density variation across the northwestern boundary of PKT (a) and Orientale Basin (b).

The smooth transition likely reflects a diffuse boundary in the grain densities at the surface that is not reflective of the grain densities of the underlying crust. The dashed lines represent the center of the basins. The latitudes and longitudes of the northwestern boundary of PKT are 0°– 90°N and 200°E–320°E.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 Map of oblique lunar highlands basins.

GRAIL-derived porosity is shown on a cylindrical projection. Black circles indicate indicate the 1 and 2 radii extents of each basin. The gray arrows indicate the impact direction identified by Wilhelms et al43.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Comparison of basin ages derived from the buffered nonsparseness correction technique (BNSC), samples, and our porosity modeled cratering records a) N(20) and b) basin ages.

Model cratering records (black circles) and associated uncertainties are the result shown in Supplementary Information. BNSC-derived basin ages (magenta circles) are from Orgel et al.45. The thick horizontal bars colored in yellow are proposed ages based on Apollo samples. For Imbrium, these youngest ages range from 3.75 Ga, from Rb-Sr radiometric derived ages of Apollo 16 impact melt rocks 60635 by Deutsch and Stöffler80 and 40Ar–39Ar ages of Apollo 14 rocks by Stadermann et al.81, to 3.95 Ga, from Schaeffer and Husain77. The age of Nectaris ranges from 3.98 Ga, from Jessberger et al.79 and Maurer et al.78, to 4.22–4.25 Ga, proposed by Norman and Nemchin76 and Schaeffer and Husain77. For Serenitatis, Snape et al.83 analyzed relative probability of phosphates Pb-Pb ages of four Apollo 14 melt breccias and found two spikes at ~3.92 and 3.94 Ga. An older age, 4.21 Ga, applying the same method to shocked phosphates from Apollo 17 samples, is suggested by Černok et al84.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 Modeled lunar crust porosity for a double impact in Moscoviense region.

Bull-eyed pattern (lower porosity) in the northwestern part of 640 km diameter Moscoviense results from the smaller impact, ~401 km diameter (circled in red color) that post-dates the larger basin. This simulated pattern is inconsistent with the GRAIL-derived porosity data, discounting the possibility that Moscoviense is a double impact85.

Source data

Extended Data Table 1 Porosity density distribution in uprange and down-range from an oblique impact
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Supplementary information

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Huang, Y.H., Soderblom, J.M., Minton, D.A. et al. Bombardment history of the Moon constrained by crustal porosity. Nat. Geosci. 15, 531–535 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00969-4

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