neoKREEP: A new lunar component at Apollo 17

Abstract

The Apollo 11 (Mare Tranquillitatis) and Apollo 17 (Mare Serenitatis) landing sites are important as the only sources of high-Ti basalt visited by the Apollo missions. The lunar high-Ti basalts (greater than 6 percent TiO2) have no volumetrically comparable analogs among terrestrial basalts and require the presence of ilmenite in the source region, probably representing cumulates produced late in the crystallization of the lunar magma ocean. Six principal groups of high-Ti basalts are described, three from each of the two sites