Probing the Lunar Polar Crust with GRAIL Gravity

The lunar polar crust, from latitude ±80° to the pole, exhibits Bouguer gravity anomalies that result from crustal density variations of order ±45 mGal in the south and ±25 mGal in the north, bandpass filtered to wavelengths representing the top 50 km. Evident in the Bouguer gravity at both poles are the signatures of a few large craters and basins. But at both poles, the Bouguer map also displays a large number of small, rather sinuous features, some outlining crater rims and some structures on crater floors, that are distributed more or less uniformly across the region. The root mean square (rms) variation over the 10° radius cap is less than 11 mGals at the south pole and less than 7 mGals in the north. This difference reflects the greater crustal complexity in the south compared to the north, but these magnitudes are approximately 10% of the total field in the polar regions, indicating that substantial density anomalies exist below 50 km depth. Modeling the crustal anomalies in the top 50 km by density contrasts at various depths suggest the rms magnitudes can be explained by small local variations in porosity, or possibly the presence of H2O at concentrations of a few percent. The required concentration increases with depth for a given volume but the possibility that the source of the polar anomalies includes small concentrations of H2O in the crust, however, cannot be ruled out.