Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Suavet C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3666739 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20130506 21
The lifetime of the ancient lunar core dynamo has implications for its power source and the mechanism of field generation. Here, we report analyses of two 3.56-Gy-old mare basalts demonstrating that they were magnetized in a stable and surprisingly intense dynamo magnetic field of at least ~13 μT. These data extend the known lifetime of the lunar dynamo by ~160 My and indicate that the field was likely continuously active until well after the final large basin-forming impact. This likely exclude ...[more]