15499 (120) Pigeonite Vitrophyre Basalt
Collection:
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Microscope
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Fact sheet

15499 (120) Pigeonite Vitrophyre Basalt

15499 is vesicular lunar mare basalt with a porphyritic texture. It is composed of long needles of euhedral clinopyroxene (42%), set in a dark brownish grey microcrystalline groundmass (57%). The pyroxene needles are up to 1cm long, a few mm wide, and were originally hollow. In some areas the pyroxene crystals penetrate large vugs. The thin section shows that the rock is composed of long needles of euhedral pyroxene (augite-pigeonite) set in a dark brownish-grey microcrystalline to glassy (vitrophyric) groundmass. Opaque minerals present include ilmenite, chrome-spinel, ulvospinel, troilite and metallic iron.

The sample weighed 2024 grams before analysis. It has been dated at 3.34±0.08 billion years (Ar/Ar).

Further details of this and other Apollo samples are here: http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/

About this collection

Sample details

Type
igneous
Rock-forming mineral
pyroxene
plagioclase
feldspar
glass
Accessory minerals
ilmenite
chrome-spinel
ulvospinel
troilite
metallic iron
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: