Chemical and Isotopic Consequences of Lunar Formation via Giant Impact

• Main Author: Pahlevan, Kaveh
• Format: Others
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/5937/1/thesis-final.pdf; Pahlevan, Kaveh (2010) Chemical and Isotopic Consequences of Lunar Formation via Giant Impact. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/YPP1-AQ73. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06082010-072824369 <https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06082010-072824369>

There is near consensus in the planetary science community that the origin of the Moon can be traced to a massive interplanetary collision between a roughly Mars-sized object and the growing Earth towards the end of planetary accretion. Many in the geochemical community, however, have rightly expressed skepticism towards this hypothesis. The compositional signatures of the giant impact have never been clearly articulated, and no one has yet used the ideas of lunar origin to say something about the lunar composition that was not previously known, that is, to make a prediction. The work presented here seeks to develop the theory of lunar origin with two goals in mind: of reconciling the predictions of the dynamical scenario with the observed signatures in the lunar composition, and of making new predictions for the lunar chemical and isotopic composition that can test and further constrain the theory through comparison with observations.