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Early Moon formation inferred from hafnium–tungsten systematics
- Source :
- Nature Geoscience
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- The date of the Moon-forming impact places an important constraint on Earth’s origin. Lunar age estimates range from about 30 Myr to 200 Myr after Solar System formation. Central to this age debate is the greater abundance of 182W inferred for the silicate Moon than for the bulk silicate Earth. This compositional difference has been explained as a vestige of less late accretion to the Moon than to the Earth after core formation. Here we present high-precision trace element composition data from inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for a wide range of lunar samples. Our measurements show that the Hf/W ratio of the silicate Moon is higher than that of the bulk silicate Earth. By combining these data with experimentally derived partition coefficients, we found that the 182W excess in lunar samples can be explained by the decay of the now extinct 182Hf to 182W. 182Hf was only extant for the first 60 Myr after the Solar System formation. We conclude that the Moon formed early, approximately 50 Myr after the Solar System, and that the excess 182W of the silicate Moon is unrelated to late accretion. The Moon formed around 50 Myr after the Solar System, suggests a lunar silicate Hf/W ratio higher than that of Earth, from high-precision compositional analysis of lunar rock samples.
- Subjects :
- Solar System
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
chemistry.chemical_element
Tungsten
010502 geochemistry & geophysics
01 natural sciences
Accretion (astrophysics)
Silicate
Physics::Geophysics
Hafnium
Astrobiology
chemistry.chemical_compound
chemistry
13. Climate action
Physics::Space Physics
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Formation and evolution of the Solar System
Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
Earth (classical element)
Geology
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17520908 and 17520894
- Volume :
- 12
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Geoscience
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....69964a346ba9b1031a663a882d5efa47