THERE IS TREASURE EVERYWHERE: LUNAR METEORITES AS TREASURE TROVES OF INFORMATION FOR THE MOON AND PLANETARY EVOLUTION THROUGH SPACE AND TIME

One of the underlying principles of Allan Treiman’s career has been “There is treasure everywhere”. In this abstract I focus on the truth of that statement, as told by the scientific journey I was fortunate enough to share with Allan working mostly on lunar meteorites and Apollo samples, as well as the occasional martian and asteroidal meteorite. Meteorites are samples The Moon specifically is a key proxy for the early Earth and represents an archive of the early dynamic Solar System climate and thus, the early geological evolution of terrestrial planets. Lunar meteorites provide a random sampling of the lunar crust including areas not visited by Apollo missions and are therefore more representative of the whole lunar surface than Apollo samples, and thus critical for our understanding of the entire Moon. Lunar meteorite Allan Hills (ALHA) 81005 is a feldspathic regolith breccia possibly from the farside lunar highlands, and was first studied by Allan Treiman in the 1980s, and then re-examined by us together 30+ years later. This meteorite represents a treasure trove of different materials and information (like Allan Treiman and his long career). ALHA 81005 contains typical lunar minerals and rocks including fragments of ferroan granulite, ferroan anorthosite (FAN), mare basalt, impact melt, and glass spherules, as well as unique and unusual fragments such as a KREEP-rich clast, pink-spinel anorthosite, Mg-anorthosite (MAN), Mg-granulite, and relict fragments of exogenous material, including a possibly chondritic fragment. Although MANs and Mg-granulites are found in the Apollo sample collection (rarely), pink-spinel anorthosite has only been described in lunar meteorites and remote sensing observations. Integrated results of sample analyses coupled with remote sensing, demonstrate the complex geologic history of our Moon, and underscore the need for continued study of lunar samples, Apollo and meteorite alike. Allan’s motto of “there is treasure everywhere” highlights how hidden surprises and insights can continue to emerge as new samples are returned from unexplored terrain, new lunar meteorites are discovered, and new globally and locally remotely sensed data are acquired that reveal compositional relationships and evolutionary processes.