^1,2Alberto Collareta, ¹Massimo D’Orazio, ¹Maurizio Gemelli, ³Andreas Pack,¹Luigi Folco
¹Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
²Dottorato Regionale in Scienze della Terra Pegaso, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
³Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum, Abteilung Isotopengeologie, Göttingen, Germany

The meteorite Mount DeWitt (DEW) 12007 is a polymict regolith breccia mainly consisting of glassy impact-melt breccia particles, gabbroic clasts, feldspathic clasts, impact and volcanic glass beads, basaltic clasts, and mingled breccia clasts embedded in a matrix dominated by fine-grained crystals; vesicular glassy veins and rare agglutinates are also present. Main minerals are plagioclase (typically An>85) and clinopyroxene (pigeonites and augites, sometimes interspersed). The presence of tranquillityite, coupled with the petrophysical data, the O-isotope data (Δ17O = −0.075), and the FeOtot/MnO ratios in olivine (91), pyroxene (65), and bulk rock (77) indicate a lunar origin for DEW 12007. Impactites consist of Al-rich impact-melt splashes and plagioclase-rich meta-melt clasts. The volcanic products belong to the very low titanium (VLT) or low titanium (LT) suites; an unusual subophitic fragment could be cryptomare-related. Gabbroic clasts could represent part of a shallow intrusion within a volcanic complex with prevailing VLT affinity. DEW 12007 has a mingled bulk composition with relatively high incompatible element abundances and shows a high crustal diversity comprising clasts from the Moon’s major terranes and rare lithologies. First-order petrographic and chemical features suggest that DEW 12007 could be launch-paired with other meteorites including Y 793274/981031, QUE 94281, EET 87521/96008, and NWA 4884.

Reference
Collareta A,D’Orazio M,Gemelli M,Pack A,Folco L (2016) High crustal diversity preserved in the lunar meteorite Mount DeWitt 12007 (Victoria Land, Antarctica). Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press)
Link to Article [DOI: 10.1111/maps.12597DOI: 10.1111/maps.12597]
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons