MIT Libraries logoDSpace@MIT

MIT
View Item 
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

A two-billion-year history for the lunar dynamo

Author(s)
Shuster, David L.; Tikoo-Schantz, Sonia M; Suavet, Clement Romain; Wang, Huapei; Weiss, Benjamin P.; Grove, Timothy L.; ... Show more Show less
Thumbnail
Downloade1700207.full.pdf (804.7Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY

Publisher Policy

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.

Terms of use
Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
Magnetic studies of lunar rocks indicate that the Moon generated a core dynamo with surface field intensities of ~20 to 110 μT between at least 4.25 and 3.56 billion years ago (Ga). The field subsequently declined to <~4 μT by 3.19 Ga, but it has been unclear whether the dynamo had terminated by this time or just greatly weakened in intensity. We present analyses that demonstrate that the melt glass matrix of a young regolith breccia was magnetized in a ~5 ± 2 μT dynamo field at ~1 to ~2.5 Ga. These data extend the known lifetime of the lunar dynamo by at least 1 billion years. Such a protracted history requires an extraordinarily long-lived power source like core crystallization or precession. No single dynamo mechanism proposed thus far can explain the strong fields inferred for the period before 3.56 Ga while also allowing the dynamo to persist in such a weakened state beyond ~2.5 Ga. Therefore, our results suggest that the dynamo was powered by at least two distinct mechanisms operating during early and late lunar history.
Date issued
2017-08
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/113646
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Journal
Science Advances
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Tikoo, Sonia M., Benjamin P. Weiss, David L. Shuster, Clément Suavet, Huapei Wang, and Timothy L. Grove. “A Two-Billion-Year History for the Lunar Dynamo.” Science Advances 3, no. 8 (August 2017): e1700207.
Version: Final published version
ISSN
2375-2548

Collections
  • MIT Open Access Articles

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

OA StatisticsStatistics by CountryStatistics by Department
MIT Libraries
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibilityContact us
MIT
Content created by the MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Notify us about copyright concerns.