Premium
Regolith stratigraphy at the Chang'E‐3 landing site as seen by lunar penetrating radar
Author(s) -
Fa Wenzhe,
Zhu MengHua,
Liu Tiantian,
Plescia Jeffrey B.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl066537
Subject(s) - regolith , ejecta , geology , impact crater , lunar mare , basalt , population , stratigraphy , astrobiology , geomorphology , geochemistry , paleontology , physics , tectonics , demography , quantum mechanics , supernova , sociology
The Chang'E‐3 lunar penetrating radar (LPR) observations at 500 MHz reveal four major stratigraphic zones from the surface to a depth of ~20 m along the survey line: a layered reworked zone (<1 m), an ejecta layer (~2–6 m), a paleoregolith layer (~4–11 m), and the underlying mare basalts. The reworked zone has two to five distinct layers and consists of surface regolith. The paleoregolith buried by the ejecta from a 500 m crater is relatively homogenous and contains only a few rocks. Population of buried rocks increases with depth to ~2 m at first, and then decreases with depth, representing a balance between initial deposition of the ejecta and later turnover of the regolith. Combining with the surface age, the LPR observations indicate a mean accumulation rate of about 5–10 m/Gyr for the surface regolith, which is at least 4–8 times larger than previous estimation.