¹Dijun Guo,^1,2Yeming Bao,¹Xing Wu,³Shuai Li,^1,2,4Yang Liu,¹Yazhou Yang,¹Yuchen Xu,¹Feng Zhang,^4,5Jianzhong Liu,¹Yongliao Zou
Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets)(in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JE008690]
¹State Key Laboratory of Solar Activity and Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
²University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China
³Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
⁴Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China
⁵Center for Lunar and Planetary Science, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, China
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

Ferroan anorthosite, the dominant component of the primordial lunar crust, provides valuable evidence for the lunar magma ocean (LMO) theory. Despite its adjacency to the feldspathic highlands terrane, the identification of pure anorthosite in the Apollo basin has been scarce. Through a comprehensive investigation with high-resolution Kaguya Multiband Imager data over the Apollo basin, we identified numerous outcrops exhibiting definitive diagnostic absorption indicative of the presence of ferroan anorthosite. These anorthosite exposures suggest that crustal material remained after the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin impact and that the mafic-rich SPA ejecta was thin in the area, providing significant insights into the excavation process of the SPA impact and subsequent evolution. Our results suggest that the Chang’e-6 mission could potentially bring back the primordial crustal anorthosite from the Apollo basin and offer valuable insights into the LMO theory, alongside the mantle material excavated by the massive SPA impact.