Fact sheet
77135 was sampled as green-grey breccia. It is an impact melt breccia remarkably similar in textural appearance and chemical composition to 76015. In fact, sample 77135 is a fine-grained, grey, vesicular, fragment-laden, crystalline matrix breccia. It has two parts: a larger, highly vesicular part which includes clasts of recrystallized troctolitic anorthosite and a smaller less vesicular part which includes recrystallized troctolitic breccia. Our thin section samples a pyroxene-rich region. The coarse-grained matrix of 77135 consists predominantly of poikilitic pyroxene (mostly pigeonite with minor augite) enclosing subhederal to euhedral plagioclase and minor olivine. Borders between pyroxene oikocrysts contain granular olivine, ilmenite plates and rods and mesostasis.The finer-grained matrix commonly surrounds or is adjacent to large lithic clasts. The matrix of the finer fraction also consists predominantly of poikilitic pyroxenes enclosing plagioclase. Intergrowths of olivine and plagioclase form aggregates approximately the same size as pyroxene oikocrysts. There appears to be more olivine, less pyroxene and less vesicles in the finer-grained lithology. Rotation 1 shows a shocked olivine clast and rotation 2 shows a region containing two dark, glassy aphanitic clasts and a few shocked pyroxene clasts. Metallic iron and less common troilite are visible in reflected light.
The sample weighed 337.4 grams before analysis and has been dated at 3.94±0.04 billion years.
Further details of this and other Apollo samples are here: http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/
Apollo 17, the final manned landing mission, had two objectives: to obtain samples of ancient rocks from the lunar highlands and to look for evidence of younger volcanic activity on the valley floor.
This small Collection contains material deriving from both periods, including igneous rocks around 4.3 billion years old from the lunar highlands as well as younger volcanic samples dating from about 3.6 billion years ago.
Apollo 17 was launched on 7 December 1972.