In a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, two scientists - Chloé Michaut from Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon1 and Jerome A. Neufeld from University of Cambridge2, propose a new model of crystallization of the lunar magma ocean where the crystals remain suspended in the lunar interior and the formation of the crust only begins once a critical crystal content is reached. Over fifty years ago, the Apollo 11 astronauts sampled the lunar Highlands. These large, pale regions of the Moon are visible to the naked eye, and are mainly composed of relatively light rocks called anorthosites. These anorthosites formed very early in the history of the lunar surface, between 4.3 and 4.5 billion years ago. Similar anorthosites can be found in fossil magma chambers on Earth, and are thought to have formed through the crystallization of magma. Producing such large volumes of anorthosite on the Moon requires a huge global magma ocean. Since the Apollo era, it has been thought that the lunar crust would have been formed by flotation of light anorthite crystals at the surface of a liquid ocean, with the heavier crystals of olivine sedimentating at the base of the ocean.
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