Assessment of Temperature Stresses in the Lithosphere of the Early Moon

Abstract

In the early stages of the Moon’s formation, its growing lithosphere experienced complex time-varying temperature and gravitational stresses. Despite the subsequent intense impact transformation of the surface, during the gravimetric study of the GRAIL space mission, the presence of ancient deep intrusions was detected. The analysis of linear gravitational anomalies shows the expansion of the outer rigid layer of the Moon at a certain early stage of its evolution due to the excess of temperature stresses over gravitational compression. Obtaining the dependence of the time interval of the lithosphere expansion on a number of dimensionless thermal conductivity parameters will make it possible to refine the existing models of the thermal and geochemical evolution of the early Moon.