Abstract
The geology of the decade of Apollo and Luna probably will become one of the fundamental turning points in the history of all science. For the first time, the scientists of the Earth have been presented with the opportunity to interpret their home planet through the direct investigations of another. Mankind can be proud and take heart in this fact.
The interpretive evolution of the Moon can be divided now into seven major stages beginning sometime near the end of the formation of the solar system. These stages and their approximate durations in time are as follows:
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1.
The Beginning — 4.6 billion years ago.
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2.
The Melted Shell — 4.6–4.4 billion years ago.
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3.
The Cratered Highlands — 4.4–4.1 billion years ago.
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4.
The Large Basins — 4.1–3.9 billion years ago.
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5.
The Light-colored Plains — 3.9–3.8 billion years ago.
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6.
The Basaltic Maria — 3.8–3.0 (?) billion years ago.
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7.
The Quiet Crust — 3.0 (?) billion years ago to the present.
The Apollo and Luna explorations that permit us to study these stages of evolution each have contributed in progressive and significant ways. Through them we now can look with new insight into the early differentiation of the Earth, the nature of the Earth's protocrust, the influence of the formation of large impact basins in that crust, the effects of early partial melting of the protomantle and possibly the earliest stages of the breakup of the protocrust into continents and ocean basins.
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References
Conference Proceedings
Proceedings of the Apollo 11 Lunar Science Conference, Houston, Tex., 1970, 3 vols. Edited by A. A. Levinson. N.Y., Pergamon Press, 1970 (Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. Suppl. 1).
Proceedings of the second Lunar Science Conference, Houston, Tex., 1971, 3 vols. Edited by A. A. Levinson. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1971 (Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. Suppl. 2).
Proceedings of the third Lunar Science Conference, Houston, Tex., 1972, 3 vols. Editors: vol. 1: Elbert A. King, Jr., vol. 2: Dieter Heymann, vol. 3: David R. Criswell. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1972 (Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. Suppl. 3).
Proceedings of the fourth Lunar Science Conference, Houston, Tex., 1973, 3 vols. Managing Editor, Wulf A. Gose. N.Y., Pergamon Press, 1973 (Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. Suppl. 4).
Proceedings of the fifth Lunar Science Conference, Houston, Tex., 1974, 3 vols. Managing Editor, Wulf A. Gose. N.Y., Pergamon Press, 1974 (Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. Suppl. 5).
Preliminary Science Reports
Apollo 11 Preliminary Science Report. NASA SP-214. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1969, 209 pp.
Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report. NASA SP-235. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1970, 235 pp.
Apollo 14 Preliminary Science Report. NASA SP-272. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1971, 313 pp.
Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report. NASA SP-289. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1972, 502 pp.
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Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report. NASA SP-330. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1974, 710 pp.
Reports in Science
Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Team, ‘Preliminary Examination of Lunar Samples from Apollo 11’, Science 165, 1211–1227.
Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Team, ‘Preliminary Examination of Lunar Samples from Apollo 12’, Science 167, 1325–1339, March 6, 1970.
Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Team, ‘Preliminary Examination of Lunar Samples from Apollo 14’, Science 173, 681–693, August 20, 1971.
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Compilations of Abstracts
54th Annual Meeting, April 16–20, 1972. Abstracts and program in: EOS; Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 54, 218–520, April 1973.
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GSA Meeting, Dallas, Texas, 1973. Symposium: Geology and Geochemistry of the Moon, W. R. Muehlberger and Harrison H. Schmitt, Presiding. Abstracts of this meeting are to be found in: Geological Society of America. Abstracts with programs 5 (7) October 1973. (A summary of this symposium has been published in: Muehlberger, W. R. and Schmitt, H. H., Symposium: ‘Geology and Geochemistry of the Moon’, Geology 2, 136–137, March 1974.)
Other Articles
Hinners, N. W., ‘The New Moon: a View’. Rev. Geophys. Space Phys. 9, 447–522, August 1971.
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Luna 16 issue, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 13, 223–466, January 1972.
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USGS Apollo Geology Team Reports
(Apollo 11 geologic setting is included in PET article, Science 165, 1221–1227, September 19, 1969.)
(Apollo 12 geologic setting contained in PET article, Science 167, 1325–1339, March 6, 1970)
Swann, G. A., Trask, N. J., Hair, M. H., and Sutton, R. L., ‘Geologic Setting of the Apollo 14 samples’, Science 173, 716–719, August 20, 1971.
Apollo Lunar Geology Investigation Team, ‘Geologic Setting of the Apollo 15 Samples’, Science 175, 407–417, January 28, 1972.
Apollo Field Geology Investigation Team, ‘Apollo 16 Exploration of Descartes: a Geologic Summary’, Science 179, 62–69, January 5, 1973.
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Apollo 11
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 20. Schleicher, David, ed., Geologic transcript from Apollo 11 mission. December 1969.
Apollo 12
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 21. Schleicher, David, ed., Paraphrased geologic excerpts from Apollo 12 mission. June 1970.
Information of the USGS sample location and orientation for Apollo 11 and 12 is also in: Sutton, R. L., Schaber, G. C., Lunar locations and orientations of rock samples from Apollo 11 and 12, Proc. 2nd Lunar Science Conference 1, 17–26, MIT Press, 1971.
Apollo 14
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 25. Batson, R. M. et al., Preliminary log of 70 mm pictures taken on the lunar surface during the Apollo 14 mission (magazines II, JJ, KK, LL, MM). March 1971.
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Apollo 15
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 32. Apollo Lunar Geology Investigation Team, Preliminary report on the geology and field petrology at the Apollo 15 landing site. August 1971.
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 34. Sutton, R. L. et al., Preliminary documentation of the Apollo 15 samples. August 1971.
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Apollo 16
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 48. Apollo Lunar Geology Investigation Team, Preliminary report on the geology and field petrology at the Apollo 16 landing site. April 1972.
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 49. Apollo Lunar Geology Investigation Team, Progress report: Apollo 16 sample documentation. May 1972.
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 50. Batson, R. M. et al., Preliminary catalog of pictures taken on the lunar surface during the Apollo 16 mission. May 1972.
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Apollo 17
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 69. Apollo Lunar Geology investigation Team, Preliminary report on the geology and field petrology at the Apollo 17 landing site. December 1972.
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 70. Larson, K. B. et al., Preliminary catalog of pictures taken on the lunar surface during the Apollo 17 mission. January 1972.
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 71. Apollo Lunar Geology Investigation Team, Documentation and environment of the Apollo 17 samples: a preliminary report. January 1973.
U.S. Geological Survey. Interagency Report: Astrogeology 72. Apollo Lunar Geology Investigation Team, Preliminary geologic analysis of the Apollo 17 site. March 1973.
Additional information
This paper is a revision and augmentation of a paper prepared for the Soviet-American Conference on Cosmochemistry of the Moon and Planets, Moscow, U.S.S.R., June 4–8, 1974. Adapted from ‘The Geology of Apollo’, William Smith Lecture, Geological Society of London, London, England, 19 December 1973, contribution No. 2480, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. 91109, U.S.A.
Astronaut, Apollo 17. Present address: Assistant Administrator, Office of Energy Programs, Code N, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C. 20546, U.S.A.
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Schmitt, H.H. Evolution of the Moon: The 1974 model. Space Sci Rev 18, 259–279 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00212909
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00212909