Abstract
Many attempts have been made so far to estimate geophysical and/or geochemical conditions of the lunar magma ocean (LMO). However, there are large disparities in the scale, composition, and cooling history of the LMO. Here we report preliminary experimental results to determine the most plausible compositional range of LMO, which could form the anorthosite (An) crust with satisfying other geophysical and geochemical constraints of the moon as well.
We carried out high pressure experiments of An flotation and viscosity measurements for four possible compositions with different FeO contents for LMO. Comparison of densities between plagioclase and melts and calculation results for convection and floatation velocity of An show that the bulk FeO content of LMO was similar to or more than the BSE.
