The multispectral images of the lunar limb and farside obtained by the solid state imaging (SSI) system on board the Galileo spacecraft provide the first new pulse of compositional data of the Moon by a spacecraft in well over a decade. The wavelength range covered by SSI filters (0.4-1.0 }•m) is particularly sensitive to the composition of mare basalts, the abundance of mafic (ferrous) mineral...

the igneous dykes are a small mafic rock unit exposed in the south gorgan of eastern alborz, north iran. these mafic dykes are intruded in the middle–upper paleozoic sedimentary and metamorphic rocks units representing a part of the north gondwana province. the studied samples were collected from various locations along the exposed bodies. thin sections of these rocks show medium to coarse grai...

Introduction: Mafic igneous rocks serve as probes of the interiors of their parent bodies – the compositions of the magmas contain an imprint of the source region composition and mineralogy, the melting and crystallization processes, and mixing and assimilation. Although complicated by their multifarious history, it is possible to constrain the petrologic evolution of an igneous province throug...

The role of a mafic component in the petrogenesis of Oceanic Island Basalts (OIBs) is highly debated. As the best studied OIB, Hawaiian lavas provide critical insights into OIB genesis. At a given MgO content, the CaO content in the melt has been used to distinguish between partial melts of peridotite and garnet pyroxenite/eclogite. However, calculations using the BATCH program show that CaO co...

[1] Dust fluxes are of wide interest because of the effects of dust on climate, oceanic primary productivity, terrestrial biogeochemical cycles, and regolith composition. Estimating long‐ term dust deposition rates, however, can be difficult, especially in steep, eroding terrain. Here we present a geochemical mass balance method for estimating long‐term average rates of dust incorporation into ...

The alpha proton x-ray spectrometer (APXS) on board the rover of the Mars Pathfinder mission measured the chemical composition of six soils and five rocks at the Ares Vallis landing site. The soil analyses show similarity to those determined by the Viking missions. The analyzed rocks were partially covered by dust but otherwise compositionally similar to each other. They are unexpectedly high i...