HUI He-jiu

State Key Laboratory for Mineral Deposits Research & Lunar and Planetary Science Institute, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China

Abstract：Water plays an important role in the geological evolution of terrestrial planets. The Moon was thought to be "bone-dry" since the Apollo era. This view, however, has been challenged by recent studies on detections of water in lunar materials. Here, we review recent reports of finding water in the lunar interior. The analyses of lunar volcanic glass beads, olivine melt inclusions, apatites, and nominally anhydrous minerals have all demonstrated that the lunar interior contains water and some parts contain as much water as Earth's upper mantle. Furthermore, the detection of water in plagioclase of ferroan anorthosite indicates that the Moon was wet back to the early time of its molten state. The discoveries of water in the lunar interior imply that some of the paradigm for geological evolution of the Moon under a dry condition must be reconsidered.

Key words：the Moon volcanic glass bead olivine melt inclusion apatite plagioclase water

E-Mail: hhui@nju.edu.cn

Bulletin of Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry Vol.36, No.5, 2017, page 706-713