Seatbelt basalt
Lunar Sample 15016, better known as the "Seatbelt Basalt", is a
.It is so named because mission commander, David Scott, noticed it on the surface while driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle and stopped to collect it, but said to mission control that he was just fastening his seatbelt.[1] He did this because he assumed mission control would not give permission to stop for a sample collection due to time constraints.[2] This unplanned stop was later designated Geology Station 3, located about 125 metres (410 ft) west of Rhysling crater.
This sample was collected from an area with abundant subdued craters between 0.1 and 1 metre (0.33 and 3.28 ft) in diameter. The sample is a very vesicular basalt, rounded by surface erosion.
The seatbelt basalt is currently stored at the
Description
The seatbelt basalt is a highly-vesicular, olivine-normative, basalt with phenocrysts of zoned pyroxene and olivine within a matrix of pyroxene and plagioclase. The rock also contains ilmenite and ulvöspinel.
Age
The rock's cosmic ray exposure age was discovered to be about 285 million years.[4] Another study determined the age to be 315 million years.[5]
The rock's age of formation has been estimated to be approximately 3.29 ± 0.05 billion years from Rb-Sr radiometric dating.[6]
References
- ISBN 978-0816510658
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-07-27.
- ^ Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report (NASA SP-289, 1972), Chapter 5.
- ^ Kirsten, T., Deubner, J., Horn, P., Kaneoka, I., Kiko, J., Schaeffer, O. A., and Thio, S. K. (1972) The rare gas record of Apollo 14 and 15 samples. Proc. 3rd Lunar Sci. Conf. 1865-1889.
- ^ Husain, L. (1974) 40Ar-39Ar chronology and cosmic ray exposure ages of the Apollo 15 samples. J. Geophys. Res. 79, 2588-2606.
- ^ Evensen, N. M., Murthy, V. R. and Coscio, M. R. (1973) Rb-Sr ages of some mare basalts and the isotopic and trace element systematics in lunar fines. Proc. 4th Lunar Sci. Conf. 1707-1724.