14310 Impact melt breccia
Collection:
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope

Fact sheet

14310 Impact melt breccia

14310 appears to be a fine grained crystalline igneous basalt but its chemistry reveals it to be derived from a lunar soil that has been welded into a rock by shock melting during a meteorite impact. It may have been a clast within the Fra Mauro formation, which is an impact crater ejecta blanket close to the landing site of Apollo 14. The rock has high nickel and iron contents as well as Fe-Ni-P-S melt globules indicating that it is not of a simple igneous origin although superficially it resembles basalt.

The thin section shows that it is fine-grained feldspathic basalt with intersertal texture consisting of lath-like plagioclase and anhedral pyroxene. Many large (2 millimetre) blocky phenocrysts of plagioclase are found in the interlocking network of randomly-oriented laths (~200 micron) of plagioclase. Pyroxene is found interstitial to the plagioclase framework. The cores of pyroxene crystals are orthopyroxene which zone to pigeonite compositions. Augite sometimes forms epitaxial overgrowths on the pigeonite. Ilmenite occurs in the interstices and is intergrown with the outer margins of the pyroxene.

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

About this collection

The Apollo 14 landing site was in a region formed by impact-basin debris.

Most of the 42 kilograms of rocks and soil collected on Apollo 14 are breccias (rocks that are composed of fragments of other, older rocks). In some cases, the rock fragments that form a breccia are themselves breccias. Such rocks obviously have experienced complex histories with multiple generations of impact events. Some breccias were heated enough that some of the material in the rock was melted. 

Apollo 14 was launched on 31 January 1971.

Sample details

Collection: Apollo 14
Type
metamorphic
Rock-forming mineral
pyroxene
feldspar
glass
Accessory minerals
ilmenite
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: