Petrology and shock history of hybrid lunar feldspathic–troctolitic breccia Northwest Africa 11515

Abstract

Lunar impact breccia meteorites contain clasts from unknown lunar regions, including areas not studied by past missions. These meteorites offer a unique opportunity to expand our knowledge of the Moon's crustal and mantle composition and processes. The recently classified lunar meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 11515 is a moderately shocked feldspathic breccia with anorthite plagioclase and mafic minerals. In this work, we report the shock history of lithic clasts using 2-D micro-X-ray diffraction, detailed mineralogy from micro-X-ray fluorescence, and electron probe microanalysis. NWA 11515 shows moderately shocked anorthite and highly shocked olivine and pyroxene. The plagioclase composition is invariant (An96.4 ± 0.7, n = 52), with variable mafic clasts overlapping Mg- and FAN-suite lithologies (Mg# 84.5 to 45.6 for olivine; Mg# 85.6 to 32.2 for pyroxene), similar to KREEP-depleted troctolites in Allan Hills A81005. Spinel-group oxides vary from aluminous spinel to chromite and ulvöspinel. We also observed slow-cooled augite Ca-poor pyroxene exsolution clasts and fast-quenched fine-grained anorthite–olivine co-crystallized clasts (<5 μm), indicating different cooling histories. Combining petrological observations with published geochemical data, we show NWA 11515 has the mixed lithology of ferroan anorthosites with KREEP-poor magnesian rock fragments. With shock analysis, the materials are likely from a crater with minimum size of 7 km. Finally, we examined the published geochemical data for other lunar meteorites and hypothesize that other typical feldspathic breccias could contain magnesian clasts, suggesting the subdivision of typical feldspathic breccia into magnesian clast-hosting breccia and ferroan feldspathic breccia. This implies that non-KREEP magnesian magmatism might be more widespread in the post-LMO era on lunar highlands.