Lunar Breccia Anorthosite Plagioclase Meteorite 19.7 gms for Sale

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Lunar Breccia Anorthosite Plagioclase Meteorite 19.7 gms For Sale

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Lunar Breccia Anorthosite Plagioclase Meteorite 19.7 gms:
$200.00

Apollo 16 Lunar Samples

The overall set of lunar samples collected during the Apollo program can be classified into three major rock types, basalts, breccias, and lunar highland rocks. The Apollo 16 sample collection is dominated by breccias, and there are also some important examples of highland crustal rocks. There are no basaltic rocks in the Apollo 16 samples except for tiny clasts within some of the breccias. The Apollo 16 crew collected 731 individual rock and soil samples, including a deep drill core with material from 2.2 meters below the lunar surface, with a total mass of 95.7 kilograms.

Breccias Everywhere

Although it was thought prior to the Apollo 16 mission that the landing site was covered by volcanic plains, this turned out not to be the case. Instead, virtually every rock collected on Apollo 16 was a breccia. Breccias are rocks that are composed of fragments of other, older rocks. Over its long history, the Moon has been bombarded by countless meteorites. These impacts have broken many rocks up into small fragments. Sometimes, the heat and pressure of these impacts fuses small rock fragmen.

Rocks from the Lunar Highland Crust

Very early in the Moon\'s history, much of its outer region was molten, a stage in lunar history known as the magma ocean. As the magma ocean cooled and solidified, a type of rock known as anorthosite, which consists mostly of the mineral plagioclase, floated to the surface. Small fragments of anorthosite were found beginning on Apollo 11, and a larger sample was found on Apollo 15. Two anorthosite samples collected on Apollo 16 are much larger than those found on any other Apollo mission. 60025, the sample shown here, solidified 4.36 billion years ago.

TESTS POSITIVE ON DIAMOND SELECTOR II AS CONTAINING DIAMONDS