40
Ar—
39
Ar ages and irradiation history of Luna 24 basalts
The Luna 24 mission sampled a variety of lithologies in a single core. Two of these lithologies, a metabasalt (24196) and a crushed basalt (24170) have been subjected to 40 Ar- 39 Ar dating experiments to determine if metamorphism significantly post-dated basalt extrusion. The metabasalt exhibited symptoms of both solar wind contamination and 39 Ar recoil; in view of these effects an age may only be defined by making extreme assumptions. High temperature release fractions give an age of 3.36 ± 0.11 Ga, while the cumulate 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ratio gives 3.14 ± 0.16 Ga; both are comparable with the basalt (24170) age and suggest that the metabasalts represent thermally penecontemporaneously metamorphosed flow margins, rather than the products of later impact events. The feldspar from the microgabbro yielded an age of 3.37 ± 0.20 Ga. The ratios of cosmogenic 38 Ar to Ca in pyroxene and feldspar are within error identical, indicating that 38 Ar production from Fe in the pyroxene is small. This is the first definitive use of Fe-produced 38 Ar as a spectral hardness indicator and implies that the microgabbro received much of its cosmic ray exposure at depth in the regolith. By taking account of the dependence of 38 Ar production rate with depth it is inferred that the microgabbro layer was deposited within the last 350-500 Ma. By implication, the regolith layers above the microgabbro at the Luna 24 site are younger. The metabasalt has an identical cosmogenic 38 Ar/Ca ratio; however, because of the decrease of production rate with depth it could have experienced a 20 % pre-exposure before deposition of the microgabbro. Spectral information has also been obtained from a reappraisal of published argon data and indicates a much harder spectrum for a near surface sample. The way in which the Ca- and Fe-produced 38 Ar e follow the broad trend of the instantaneous production profiles suggests that the regolith at the Luna 24 site has been relatively undisturbed for much of the last 300 Ma.