Earth and Planetary Science Letters 420 (2015) 95–101

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Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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Multiple origins for olivine at Copernicus crater

Deepak Dhingra ∗, Carle M. Pieters, James W. Head

Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Brook Street, Box 1846, Providence, RI 02912, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 4 August 2014Received in revised form 17 February 2015Accepted 24 March 2015Available online xxxxEditor: C. Sotin

Keywords:impact meltolivineCopernicus craterreflectance spectroscopyMoonMoon Mineralogy Mapper

Multiple origins for olivine-bearing lithologies at Copernicus crater are recognized based on integrated analysis of data from Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) and Kaguya Terrain Camera (TC). We report the diverse morphological and spectral character of previously known olivine-bearing exposures as well as the new olivine occurrences identified in this study. Prominent albedo differences exist between olivine-bearing exposures in the central peaks and a northern wall unit (the latter being ∼40% darker). The low-albedo wall unit occurs as a linear mantling deposit and is interpreted to be of impact melt origin, in contrast with the largely unmodified nature of olivine-bearing peaks. Small and localized occurrences of olivine-bearing lithology have also been identified on the impact melt-rich floor, representing a third geologic setting (apart from crater wall and peaks). Recent remote sensing missions have identified olivine-bearing exposures around lunar basins (e.g. Yamamoto et al., 2010; Pieters et al., 2011; Kramer et al., 2013) and at other craters (e.g. Sun and Li, 2014), renewing strong interest in its origin and provenance. A direct mantle exposure has commonly been suggested in this regard. Our detailed observations of the morphological and spectral diversity in the olivine-bearing exposures at Copernicus have provided critical constraints on their origin and source regions, emphasizing multiple formation mechanisms. These findings directly impact the interpretation of olivine exposures elsewhere on the Moon. Olivine can occur in diverse environments including an impact melt origin, and therefore it is unlikely for all olivine exposures to be direct mantle occurrences as has generally been suggested.

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Olivine is commonly the first crystallizing solid during mag-matic differentiation and resides largely in the mantle of differenti-ated planetary bodies such as the Earth and the Moon (e.g. Snyder et al., 1992). Near-surface occurrences of olivine dominated litholo-gies are therefore unusual unless produced through secondary pro-cesses like volcanism or plutonism. In the case of the Moon, man-tle overturn has been suggested to have brought early cumulates (including olivine) to shallower depths and subsequently led to the formation of Mg-suite rocks (including olivine-bearing lithologies such as troctolites) by interaction with crustal rocks (e.g. Hess, 1994; Elkins-Tanton et al., 2002; Elardo et al., 2011). Knowledge gaps still exist for both the mantle overturn and formation of Mg-suites rocks but their existence on the lunar surface (and in our sample collection) suggests some mechanism for their relatively shallow origin. In addition to internal evolutionary processes, im-

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 401 451 8785. Present address: Dept. of Physics, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive MS 0903, Moscow, ID 83844, USA.

E-mail address: deepdpes@gmail.com (D. Dhingra).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.03.0390012-821X/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

pact craters can excavate and relocate subsurface minerals from various depths leading to their exposure at the surface, with larger craters excavating relatively deeper than smaller craters. Central peaks of impact craters represent some of the deepest material sampled within a crater. Their steep slopes minimize soil reten-tion and aid in the identification of constituent mineralogy, re-vealing compositions from depth (e.g. Tompkins and Pieters, 1999;Cahill et al., 2009).

Olivine on the lunar surface was first discovered remotely in the central peaks of Copernicus crater (Pieters, 1982) and inter-preted to be sourced from the mantle or a buried pluton (e.g. Pieters and Wilhelms, 1985). Later studies suggested a relatively shallow source region (e.g. Lucey et al., 1991) based on potential olivine-bearing locations in the northern crater wall and the as-sumption that olivine in the wall and the peak had a common origin. Several additional olivine-bearing exposures have been de-tected using recent datasets (e.g. Pieters et al., 2011; Kramer et al., 2013). A variety of geological scenarios have been proposed to invoke a mantle origin for olivine exposures on the Moon, includ-ing excavation through a thin crust (e.g. Yamamoto et al., 2010), multiple impacts in a given region (allowing access to deeper ma-terial) (e.g. Pieters and Wilhelms, 1985), and a single giant impact

96 D. Dhingra et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 420 (2015) 95–101

event (e.g. Yamamoto et al., 2010). Diverse origins of olivine con-tinue to be proposed (e.g. Powell et al., 2012; Corley et al., 2014;Sun and Li, 2014). Here, we analyze the olivine-bearing exposures at Copernicus crater (previously known occurrences as well as some new ones) and highlight their different geological settings and origins. The critical implications of these findings for olivine occurrences elsewhere on the Moon are also discussed.

2. Data and methods

In this study, we have integrated a variety of remote sens-ing data, from multiple lunar missions. The spectral and spa-tial data used here are archived and available in public domain. Chandrayaan-1 M3 (e.g. Pieters et al., 2009; Goswami and An-nadurai, 2009), LRO NAC (e.g. Chin et al., 2007; Robinson et al., 2010) and Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) (e.g. Smith et al., 2010) datasets are available on the Planetary Data System (PDS) (http :/ /pds .nasa .gov) while Kaguya TC data (e.g. Haruyama et al., 2008) are available on the SELENE Data Archive (http :/ /l2db .selene .darts .isas .jaxa .jp/).

M3 data were acquired in various phases known as optical pe-riods and which represent various imaging conditions (Boardman et al., 2011). In this study, we used data from optical periods Op2c1 and Op2a. Mosaics were created for each optical period us-ing imaging strips covering the area of study. The choice of the optical period was guided by the areal coverage, illumination con-ditions and spatial resolution. In this context, Op2c1 data was used because of its better viewing geometry which minimized shadows and facilitated detection of albedo differences. Op2a data was help-ful due to its better data quality which could be used to identify small scale compositional differences. We used the Level 2 data for both optical periods which is publicly available and has all major corrections (viz. photometric, thermal) applied to it (e.g. Green et al., 2011).

The reflectance data from M3 was initially used to derive var-ious spectral parameters that allow general mapping of composi-tional differences in a spatial context. The M3 parameters used in this study are described in supplementary information (Table 1). Subsequently, representative spectra from the study region were extracted to highlight the observed character of olivine lithologies. The spectra are presented as general reflectance variations and in a continuum-removed form, the latter highlighting fine-scale com-positional differences. A linear continuum was estimated (for each spectrum) based on the spectral slope between 750 nm–1618 nm. The spectrum was then divided by the estimated continuum to evaluate diagnostic features.

3. New observations and insights

We have carried out detailed spectral and morphological analy-ses at Copernicus crater (9.62◦ , 339.92◦; 96 km) on the lunar near side. It is a young, well-developed complex crater with a raised rim, well-formed terraces, extensive melt-covered floor and cen-tral peaks. Prominent occurrence of olivine throughout the central peaks and a well-defined olivine-bearing exposure in the north-ern wall (both outlined in red in Fig. 1b) are readily recognized in M3 spectra. We report several new observations about these known olivine occurrences and discuss additional olivine-bearing exposures identified in this study.

3.1. Major albedo differences in olivine-bearing lithologies

Photometrically-corrected high sun (low-phase angle) observa-tions minimize shadows and maximize the ability to identify min-eralogical and brightness differences. In this context, we note that

Fig. 1. Observed albedo differences between olivine-bearing central peaks and the northern wall exposure. (a) M3 Op2c1 image highlighting bright central peaks and the relatively dark olivine-bearing northern wall. (b) The same image with the two locations outlined in red. Image Id: M3G20090610T030313. The phase angle for the acquired data was about 13◦ . Scale bar, 48 km. (c) M3 Op2c1 reflectance values measured at 750 nm for the olivine bearing central peaks (light green bars), north-ern wall (dark green bars) and nearby locations (brown bars). (d) M3 Op2a spectra illustrating the differences between olivine exposures in the low-albedo northern wall and the central peaks.

the northern wall olivine-bearing exposure exhibits a dramati-cally lower albedo compared to the olivine-bearing lithology in the peaks. A comparison of albedo around 750 nm for various locations

D. Dhingra et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 420 (2015) 95–101 97

Fig. 2. Geologic context of the low-albedo olivine-bearing northern wall unit. (a) Kaguya image of the northern wall containing the low-albedo olivine-bearing unit (yellow box). Scale bar is 4 km. (b) M3 color composite overlain on the Kaguya image illustrating the correspondence of strong olivine signature in the wall (red color in yellow box) with the low-albedo deposit. Red = strength of 1000 nm absorption band, green = strength of 2000 nm absorption, blue = reflectance at 1489 nm. (c) LRO NAC image (M1101338216RE) of the region (marked by the yellow box in (a) and (b)) showing the distinctive low-albedo unit. Magenta box denotes area shown in (d). Scale bar is 1 km. (d) Distal portion of the low-albedo unit in LRO NAC image (M127063668RE) illustrates the superposed nature of the deposit. Orange box denotes the area shown in (e). Scale bar is 300 m. (e) LRO NAC view (M127063668RE) showing the subsurface topography poking through the deposit. A fresh crater exposes bright wall material from beneath the deposit. Scale bar is 40 m. (f) Kaguya oblique image (SP_2B2_01_06758_N111_E3400P) showing the extension (green arrows) of the low-albedo wall unit beyond the rim (also partially captured in (b)). Scale bar is 800 m. White arrow in (a), (b) and (f) marks the location of an impact melt pond.

is shown in Fig. 1c. The reported values were calculated by aver-aging reflectances around 750 nm (730–770 nm) and over several pixels for each of the selected areas (see supplementary Fig. S1).

Contiguous M3 spectra (Fig. 1d) illustrate the brightness differ-ences very well with the northern wall olivine-bearing exposure having a consistently low-albedo across the visible to near-infrared wavelength range. In fact, the northern wall unit exhibits the low-est albedo in the entire region when compared to the material near the peaks and the neighboring wall, highlighting its distinc-tive nature. Additional measurements of albedo differences are presented in Supplementary Fig. S2. It should be noted that al-though albedo variations could be strongly influenced by local to-pography, those effects do not significantly affect our observations here due to multiple reasons. There is already a photometric cor-rection applied for the local topography based on LRO LOLA obser-vations (Smith et al., 2010). The spatial scale of observations, both at the northern wall and the peaks, is relatively large (>1 km) and spans local slopes providing confidence that the observed bright-ness differences are real. Lastly, the magnitude of difference in albedo (40%) strengthens the argument even further when con-sidered together with the previous constraints.

3.2. Distinct morphology of the northern wall olivine-bearing unit

A second major observation documents the distinctive geologic context of the olivine-bearing, low-albedo northern wall unit and is illustrated in Fig. 2 with high spatial resolution data from LRO NAC (∼1 m/pixel) and Kaguya TC (10 m/pixel). The low-albedo unit occurs as a relatively continuous, linear feature about 3.5 km long and 0.5–1 km wide, extending down slope from a prominent crater wall terrace that contains an impact melt pond (Fig. 2a, b, f, melt pond marked with white arrow). The morphology of the lower section is quite distinct. At the very distal end, there is a sharp boundary between the low-albedo unit and the bright (boulder-rich) northern wall material. The low-albedo unit occurs as a dark apron with undulating boundaries spread across the wall,

likely guided by the local topography (illustrated in Fig. 2d; also see supplementary Fig. S3 for slopes in the area). It mantles the wall as a thin-deposit with sub-surface topography visible through it. Occasionally, bright boulder material from the wall can be ob-served protruding through the low-albedo unit or excavated by small craters (shown in Fig. 2e). All these properties indicate that the low-albedo feature is likely to be an impact melt deposit.

A likely continuation of the low-albedo unit appears to extend beyond the crater rim and is best seen in Fig. 2f. This rim unit also displays a broad (but weaker) absorption band near 1000 nm (black spectrum in Fig. 3c and d). There are a few other low-albedo streaks in the vicinity and in other parts of the crater (e.g. eastern and southern rim) but many of them have a spectrally dif-ferent character including detectable contributions from pyroxene and possibly quenched glass, apart from olivine. Additional details on these diverse features are provided in supplementary Fig. S4.

3.3. Olivine-bearing exposures on the crater floor away from the central peaks

A third new observation is the identification of several small, isolated olivine-bearing exposures on the impact melt-rich crater floor (Fig. 3a with red and blue filled circles). These locations display distinctive spectral properties that are similar to the con-firmed olivine-bearing exposures discussed above (see Fig. 3c for comparison). This represents a third geological setting (in addition to the central peaks and northern wall) for olivine-bearing litholo-gies at Copernicus crater.

The olivine-bearing floor exposures (represented by both red and blue circles/spectra) are generally clustered in the north-west part of the crater floor (Fig. 3a) and are associated with small, high standing mounds (Fig. 3b), or fresh craters in the melt sheet. An evaluation of the geologic context for each occurrence and the nature of their spectra has been made and compared with the other olivine-bearing lithologies. Spectra of olivine exposures on the floor have higher albedo than the northern wall olivine spec-

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Fig. 3. Nature and distribution of the olivine exposures at Copernicus crater. (a) The locations of olivine/quenched glass-bearing floor exposures marked as filled circles. Red outlines show olivine-bearing central peaks and the northern wall exposure. Scale bar is 45 km. Spectra of the numbered floor locations are presented in (c) and (d) and colored the same way. (b) Kaguya TC image showing geologic context of two crater floor locations (7, 10) displaying strong 1050 nm absorption, M3 color composite overlays are shown with same parameters as in Fig. 2b. (c) Spectra of numbered crater floor exposures. The spectra from the central peaks, northern wall and rim above the wall exposure are provided for comparison. (d) Same spectra as (c) but with continuum removed. Vertical dotted line at 1050 nm in (c) and (d) marks the central absorption in olivine. Scale bars, 700 m.

trum (Fig. 3c and d) making them spectrally more comparable to the central peaks. The areas identified with filled red circles in Fig. 3a display absorption bands centered around 1050 nm with no feature at 2000 nm and have comparable band strength (e.g. spectrum 9, 10 in Fig. 3d) to the known olivine occurrences. We interpret these as olivine-bearing. Several other areas on the crater floor (blue filled circles in Fig. 3a) also display a broad absorp-tion band around 1000 nm confirming their slightly mafic char-acter. These spectra are however, noisier and have variable band strength, making it difficult to confirm a composite nature of the 1000 nm absorption, which would be diagnostic of olivine. Despite the broad spectral similarity with known olivine-bearing occur-rences, this group may also be interpreted as fully melted and quickly quenched glass (Bell et al., 1976; Horgan et al., 2014)which has a broad absorption around 1000 nm. However, a weak absorption short of 2000 nm, usually present in quenched glass, is not seen in our data. Since quenched glass might be present in impact melt deposits, we do not rule out its presence in some of these locations.

Nevertheless, the occurrence of olivine-bearing lithologies on the crater floor is clearly indicated by the spectral character of the first group (red colored circles). The additional exposures (blue colored circles), if confirmed to be olivine-bearing instead of glass-rich, would further expand the spatial extent of olivine-bearing lithologies on the floor. However, if found to be glass-rich, these additional exposures would represent a section of the impact melt that cooled relatively rapidly. The spatial distribution of small, lo-

calized olivine-bearing exposures could indicate whether olivine-bearing lithology was geographically extensive in the pre-impact target material or rather limited. Detailed compositional mapping across the crater (Dhingra, 2015) suggests that there are also a few small, isolated olivine-bearing exposures scattered in different parts of the crater, an indication of perhaps a more widespread distribution of olivine at Copernicus than previously recognized.

4. Discussion

Olivine-bearing lithologies have now been documented in asso-ciation with the three genetically different crater units at Coperni-cus (central peaks, wall deposits and the impact melt-rich floor), each sampling a different depth (e.g. Cintala and Grieve, 1998) and/or having undergone different geological processing. An af-filiation with impact melt is noted in two cases (northern wall and floor). Since recent geophysical results from Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission (e.g. Zuber et al., 2013;Wieczorek et al., 2013) do not indicate the presence of a signifi-cantly thin crust at Copernicus, direct mantle access was unlikely during the cratering event.

The source of observed olivine at Copernicus thus appears to have originally been located within the crustal column and may have occurred within previously deposited basin ejecta (e.g. Im-brium or Insularum) or a buried shallow pluton (e.g. Pieters and Wilhelms, 1985; Andrews-Hanna et al., 2013). Alternatively, olivine could have originated in an impact melt by secondary processing

D. Dhingra et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 420 (2015) 95–101 99

of a heterogeneous crustal column. Mare basalt is known to be part of the pre-impact target geology at Copernicus (e.g. Schmitt et al., 1967) and could have contributed a mafic component to the impact melt which later crystallized olivine as it cooled. In order to determine how the distinctly different olivine exposures recog-nized at Copernicus may have originated, each occurrence needs to be evaluated separately in its specific geologic context.

4.1. Origin of olivine in the central peaks and crater floor

In the case of olivine-bearing central peaks, their formation is believed to have involved transportation of material from ∼15 km depth (e.g. Cintala and Grieve, 1998) in a relatively coherent, al-though likely highly shocked form (e.g. Melosh, 1982). The rela-tively bright peak material has been interpreted to be a mixture of plagioclase and olivine in different proportions (e.g. Pieters, 1982). The olivine-bearing exposures on the crater floor (mostly high standing mounds) likely represent broken, un-melted large frag-ments that became embedded in the impact melt, perhaps from the same source lithology as the central peaks (e.g. Dhingra, 2015). In addition, exposures associated with small craters could either be part of the melt sheet or could still be broken pieces from the peaks but much smaller in size compared to the large mounds. Some of the floor exposures could also be interpreted in terms of intimate mixtures of olivine and quenched glass that crystal-lized out of impact melt. The spectral character of these occur-rences have a broad absorption band around 1000 nm instead of a well-defined set of three absorption bands characteristic of olivine. However, it is beyond the capabilities of the current dataset to un-ambiguously resolve these two possibilities.

4.2. Origin of olivine on the northern wall

The northern wall olivine exposure has no observable large boulders (in contrast to the olivine-bearing high standing mounds on the crater floor) and instead appears quite smooth. The notable low-albedo requires a pervasive opaque component, an important distinguishing property in comparison to other olivine-bearing oc-currences at Copernicus. The strong, composite absorption band around 1050 nm (northern wall, Fig. 3d) suggests that the crys-talline olivine is relatively abundant or has a notably coarse grain size within a darker matrix. These combined characteristics indi-cate that the olivine-bearing northern wall exposure is composi-tionally distinct from the olivine in the central peaks and on the crater floor. This finding marks an important departure from the previous interpretations (e.g. Lucey et al., 1991) where the poten-tial olivine-bearing nature of the wall deposit was equated with the olivine-bearing character of the central peaks and a shallow source for both occurrences was thus hypothesized.

There is currently no unique interpretation for the origin of the low-albedo olivine-bearing wall unit, although a mafic-rich com-ponent tapped by the impact and incorporated into the impact melt appears essential. We propose that part of this mafic com-ponent was retained as a relatively opaque glass which led to the significant lowering of the albedo of the deposit. One scenario could involve a cooling history in which large olivine crystals ini-tially formed in a mafic melt but a sudden disturbance led to the rapid cooling of the remaining melt fraction giving rise to a dark (opaque), glassy melt matrix (with embedded large olivine crys-tals). Structural re-adjustments during the modification stage of the cratering process, could potentially represent such a distur-bance. Such an event could also lead to the breaching of a crys-tallizing melt pond and cause it to flow down the crater wall. The resulting morphology would be consistent with the linear nature of the observed deposit on the northern wall. Our observations about a part of the linear deposit continuing beyond the crater

wall, onto the crater rim suggests that the two entities (wall ex-posure and rim segment) are vertically offset and provides some credibility to the interpretation of a crater re-adjustment event.

Another scenario for the formation of olivine could be a quenched environment involving olivine crystals in an opaque-rich, fine-grained glassy matrix. Here, the olivine grains could exist in the form of un-melted, small clasts, derived from an olivine-bearing unit in the original target material (e.g. McCormick et al., 1989). However, in the current context, it may or may not be linked to the source of olivine-bearing units in the central peaks. Alternatively, devitrification of mafic glassy matrix could give rise to olivine needles (e.g. Weitz et al., 1999). In either of the cases suggested above (olivine originating as a clast or a devitrified prod-uct), olivine crystals are required to give an optical signature while the surrounding material is still largely opaque and/or strongly absorbing. It has been suggested that the abundance of mafic min-erals such as olivine occurring in the presence of ferrous glass should be more than 20% in order to be detectable (e.g. Horgan et al., 2014). This may provide a lower estimate of olivine abundance under this scenario although it would also depend on the relative grain sizes of the glass and olivine grains.

A third scenario could involve excavation of a pre-existing olivine-rich pyroclastic deposit that also contains partially quench-ed, opaque mafic glass. Large pyroclastic deposits (e.g. Sinus Aes-tuum, Rima Bode) in the close vicinity to Copernicus crater are consistent with such a geological environment. At the same time, we note that there are no currently known remotely detectable olivine-bearing pyroclastic deposits and therefore if this scenario is true, the northern wall olivine exposure would be a rare variety of pyroclastic deposit.

Lastly, an exogenic origin of some of the olivine occurrences has been hypothesized since olivine is known to be present in some of the asteroid classes (e.g. 246 Asporina) and its retention as fragments has been thought to be possible under certain impact conditions (e.g. Yue et al., 2013). However, we do not find any ge-ologic evidence at Copernicus that support such an exogenic origin for the observed exposures.

Among the various possibilities suggested above for the origin of northern wall olivine-bearing exposure, we prefer the simple case in which olivine-bearing clasts from the original target mate-rial were entrained into a mafic impact melt which cooled rapidly. As a consequence, the final product was a mixture of opaque mafic glass and crystalline olivine grains.

5. Potential implications for olivine occurrences on the Moon

The observed morphological diversity and brightness differ-ences amongst olivine-bearing exposures at Copernicus crater highlight the fact that even within a single impact crater, simi-lar mineralogy may not always indicate the same origin and it is very important to know the relevant geological context before ge-netic linkages are established.

Our findings at Copernicus crater have critical implications for the mineralogical interpretations across the lunar surface (both global and regional) in terms of source region and crustal min-eralogical diversity. The reported observations have relevance for all mineral species and are not necessarily restricted to olivine oc-currences alone. In the case of olivine mineralogy, its occurrence around basins (along with other information) has been used as an indicator of a possible mantle origin (e.g. Yamamoto et al., 2010). However, as shown in this study, olivine-bearing lithologies need not always be derived as a primary lithology from a unique hori-zon at depth. It is possible that a given olivine exposure has a secondary origin in terms of recrystallization from an impact melt or even a tertiary origin in terms of recycling of the primary and secondary sources, perhaps in the form of an un-melted clast em-

100 D. Dhingra et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 420 (2015) 95–101

bedded in a pool of impact melt. Therefore, it is imperative to compare all the exposures of a given mineralogy at the highest possible spatial resolution, before their collective occurrence is in-terpreted.

6. Summary

The integrated analysis presented here documents different spectral and morphological characteristics of olivine-bearing occur-rences within Copernicus crater. The distinctive albedo differences between olivine-bearing exposures in the northern wall and the central peaks indicate that different geological processes (and pos-sible source regions) were involved in their formation. We pro-pose that olivine-bearing lithologies in the northern wall expo-sure and the crater floor are associated with impact melt and therefore these rocks have a secondary or tertiary origin. The as-sociation with impact melt also suggests that the bulk of these olivine-bearing materials were likely to have been derived from a relatively shallow source depth. In contrast, the olivine-bearing central peaks have a primary origin and represent an olivine lithol-ogy occurring at depth, below the melted zone, which was uplifted and brought to the surface during the impact process. The olivine-bearing lithologies at Copernicus are therefore diverse and did not all form in the same way.

The presence of olivine is detected on the basis of its diagnostic spectral signature in remote sensing data but the spectral detec-tion does not constrain its petrographic/petrologic form. Olivine may occur in a variety of forms such as an un-melted primary mineral clast, recrystallized melt or devitrified glass. This study demonstrates that apart from spectral identification, it is also very important to analyze the geologic context of olivine-bearing lo-cations at high spatial resolution and to identify morphological distinctions that may be related to the nature and genetic link-ages of olivine. These findings are of critical relevance to olivine occurrences elsewhere on the Moon, including large basins (e.g. Yamamoto et al., 2010) and are also applicable to other mineral species. Taken collectively, there are direct implications for the mineralogical diversity of the lunar crust. In interpreting any oc-currence of mineral, the following question must be asked: Is all the observed diversity primary in nature or is there a significant secondary component (associated with impact melt)?

The distinct differences in the geologic context of olivine at Copernicus, document a genetic diversity for olivine that is likely common across the lunar crust. In this context, Copernicus remains a scientifically high priority target for future missions.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by SSERVI Grant No. NNA14AB01A. We wish to thank Dr. Briony Horgan and an anonymous re-viewer for their careful reading and valuable suggestions that have helped in improving the manuscript. We also wish to thank ISRO Chandrayaan-1 team for flying the M3 instrument and Kaguya and LROC teams for making available an excellent set of image data that nicely complements spectral observations.

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary material related to this article can be found on-line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.03.039.

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