The South-Pole Aitken basin formation and its effects on the melting activity in the lunar mantle

Several large lunar impact basins have basaltic infillings, indicating a possible causal link between impacts and subsequent volcanic eruptions [1]. However, the majority of lunar basalts are located in the nearside, in a region known as the Procellarum-KREEP terrane (PKT), an observation explained by invoking the presence of a layer enriched in heat producing elements below or within the crust in the PKT region [2]. Furthermore, the South-Pole Aitken basin (SPA), the largest lunar basin, lacks any significant basaltic infilling. We perform thermal evolution simulations of the Moon that include the effects of the formation of the SPA, and show that any volcanic activity following the formation of a large impact basin depends on the interaction of the impact-induced thermal perturbation with the underlying mantle convection.