Magmatic Evolution I: Initial Differentiation of the Moon

Abstract

In this chapter, we present and discuss in detail current and novel advances in our understanding of the processes that drove primordial differentiation of the Moon. This chapter focuses on four avenues of study: 1) data and observations generated from remote sensing missions, 2) experimental investigations of magma ocean crystallization processes, 3) physiochemical modeling of magma ocean processes, and 4) chronological constraints on lunar differentiation. Investigations completed over the past decade and a half provide results that allow for continued testing of the lunar magma ocean (LMO) hypothesis. Although much of the recent work provides constraints on the processes that...