Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 110, Issue 21, Pages 8453-8458Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1300341110
Keywords
high-K mare basalts; paleomagnetism
Categories
Funding
- European Union under Research Executive Agency [298355]
- Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
- NASA [NNX12AH80G]
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The lifetime of the ancient lunar core dynamo has implications for its power source and the mechanism of field generation. Here, we report analyses of two 3.56-Gy-old mare basalts demonstrating that they were magnetized in a stable and surprisingly intense dynamo magnetic field of at least similar to 13 mu T. These data extend the known lifetime of the lunar dynamo by similar to 160 My and indicate that the field was likely continuously active until well after the final large basin-forming impact. This likely excludes impact-driven changes in rotation rate as the source of the dynamo at this time in lunar history. Rather, our results require a persistent power source like precession of the lunar mantle or a compositional convection dynamo.
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