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<p>Although the Moon’s surface is covered by countless impact craters, high-pressure phases are rare in lunar samples, limiting our understanding of impact history and their associated shock effects. Here we report abundant high-pressure minerals in the highly shocked lunar meteorite Northwest Africa 3170, six of which are found for the first time in lunar samples, including ahrensite, tuite, xieite, majorite, majorite-pyrope and vitrified bridgmanite, in addition to previously identified phases such as stishovite, seifertite, and ringwoodite. This mineral assemblage indicates intense shock metamorphism (~22–24 GPa and ~ 2000 °C) and rapid cooling (quench time &lt; 15 ms). Notably, substantial amounts of submicroscopic metallic iron were generated during impact rather than through space weathering, implying that large-scale impacts may have contributed significantly to metallic iron on the Moon. These findings offer new perspectives on the impact history of the Moon and the behavior of materials under extreme conditions.</p>

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Abundant high-pressure minerals and submicroscopic metallic iron discovered in a shocked lunar meteorite

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年11月17日

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  • Lixin Gu,
  • Nian Wang,
  • Yangting Lin,
  • Hengci Tian,
  • Xu Tang,
  • Zhan Zhou,
  • Xiaoguang Li,
  • Lihui Jia,
  • Yuchen Xu,
  • Sen Hu,
  • Jinhua Li

摘要

Although the Moon’s surface is covered by countless impact craters, high-pressure phases are rare in lunar samples, limiting our understanding of impact history and their associated shock effects. Here we report abundant high-pressure minerals in the highly shocked lunar meteorite Northwest Africa 3170, six of which are found for the first time in lunar samples, including ahrensite, tuite, xieite, majorite, majorite-pyrope and vitrified bridgmanite, in addition to previously identified phases such as stishovite, seifertite, and ringwoodite. This mineral assemblage indicates intense shock metamorphism (~22–24 GPa and ~ 2000 °C) and rapid cooling (quench time < 15 ms). Notably, substantial amounts of submicroscopic metallic iron were generated during impact rather than through space weathering, implying that large-scale impacts may have contributed significantly to metallic iron on the Moon. These findings offer new perspectives on the impact history of the Moon and the behavior of materials under extreme conditions.