Shock glass veins in some lunar and meteoritic samples - their nature and possible origin.
Abstract
Glassy veinlets, 15 microns to 1 mm thick and now in part devitrified, cut through breccias 67915, 67936, and 67955 from Outhouse Rock, and similar veins have been found in several other lunar samples and in meteorites. The veins have features suggesting injection of extremely hot material, possibly at several thousands degrees of superheat, presumably from an impact event. The vein compositions are very similar but not identical to the bulk compositions of the host rocks. Two mechanisms of injection are considered feasible-injection of hot liquid and injection of hot particulate matter (resembling a 'fluidized bed'), but neither mechanism fully explains all details of the occurrences.
- Publication:
-
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference Proceedings
- Pub Date:
- 1977
- Bibcode:
- 1977LPSC....8.2593R
- Keywords:
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- Breccia;
- Chemical Composition;
- Glass;
- Hypervelocity Impact;
- Lunar Soil;
- Meteoritic Composition;
- Olivine;
- Petrography;
- Pyroxenes;
- Single Crystals;
- Lunar and Planetary Exploration