Lionel Wilson Harald Hiesinger Carolyn H. Van der Bogert Yuan Yuan Chen James L. Dickson Lisa Gaddis Junichi Haruyama Lauren Jozwiak Erica Jawin Chunlai Li Jianzhong Liu Tomokatsu Morota Debra H. Needham Lillian R. Ostrach Carle M. Pieters Tabb C. Prissel Yuqi Qian Lei Qiao Malcolm R. Rutherford David R. Scott Jennifer L. Whitten Long Xiao Feng Zhang Ouyang Ziyuan James W. Head III 2023 <div id="139072550" class="article-section-wrapper js-article-section js-content-section " data-section-parent-id="139072549"><p>Volcanism is a fundamental process in the geological evolution of the Moon, providing clues to the composition and structure of the mantle, the location and duration of interior melting, the nature of convection and lunar thermal evolution. Progress in understanding volcanism has been remarkable in the short 60-year span of the Space Age. Before Sputnik 1 in 1957, the lunar farside was unknown, the origin of the dark lunar maria was debated (sedimentary or volcanic), and significant controversy surrounded the question of how the multitude of craters on the surface formed. Was the Moon formed hot or cold, was the lunar surface young or old, were the craters of impact or volcanic origin? A lunar farside deficient in the darker maria was revealed by Luna 3 in 1959 (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B107">Lipsky 1965a</a>,<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B108">b</a>). The Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, Luna and Zond missions significantly augmented pre-Sputnik telescopic observations and began to reveal the diversity of lunar geologic landforms. Return of lunar soil and rock samples from the lunar surface by Apollo (11–12, 14–17) (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B20">Compton 1989</a>) and Luna (16, 20, 24) missions (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B49">Harvey 2007a</a>,<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B50">b</a>;<span>&nbsp;</span><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B78">Huntress and Marov 2011</a>) changed the debates overnight (<a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B77">Hinners 1971</a>;<span>&nbsp;</span><a class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-bibr" data-open="B194">Taylor 1975</a>). The lunar rocks were igneous and extremely ancient, all from the first half of Solar System history; the oldest, highland anorthosites, were overlain by relatively younger, but still extremely old, extrusive basalts forming the maria.</p></div><div id="139072551" class="article-section-wrapper js-article-section js-content-section " data-section-parent-id="139072549"><br></div> application/pdf 10.2138/rmg.2023.89.11 en Mineralogical Society of America Lunar mare basaltic volcanism: Volcanic features and emplacement processes article