Farside deep moonquakes and deep interior of the Moon

[1] An effort to find farside deep moonquakes among the recently discovered nests of deep moonquakes has identified about 30 nests that are likely to be on the farside. Although only a few of them are locatable with currently available data and those few provide little new information about the deep interior of the Moon, the inferred distribution of the rest of these nests indicates that either the region of the Moon's deep interior within about 40 degrees from the antipode of the Moon is nearly aseismic or, alternatively, the very deep interior of the Moon severely attenuates or deflects seismic waves. Since this has important bearing on the origin and evolution of the Moon, future missions to the Moon need to be oriented toward resolving this uncertainty. Some limited data favor the attenuation/deflection hypotheses.

[1]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  How we processed Apollo lunar seismic data , 1980 .

[2]  G. Latham,et al.  Lunar near‐surface shear wave velocities at the Apollo Landing Sites as inferred from spectral amplitude ratios , 1980 .

[3]  J. Koyama,et al.  Seismic Q of the lunar upper mantle , 1982 .

[4]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  A1 moonquakes - Source distribution and mechanism , 1978 .

[5]  D. Mitchell,et al.  Initial measurements of the lunar induced magnetic dipole moment using Lunar Prospector Magnetometer data , 1999 .

[6]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  Structure of the lunar mantle , 1976 .

[7]  M. Ewing,et al.  Deep lunar interior inferred from recent seismic data , 1974 .

[8]  M. Zuber,et al.  Recent Refinements in Geophysical Constraints on Lunar Origin and Evolution , 2000 .

[9]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  Lunar structure and dynamics - results from the apollo passive seismic experiment , 1973 .

[10]  P. Shearer,et al.  Global lateral variations of shear wave attenuation in the upper mantle , 1996 .

[11]  P. Lognonné,et al.  First seismic receiver functions on the Moon , 2001 .

[12]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  Apollo Lunar Seismic Experiment - Final Summary , 1982 .

[13]  B. Bills,et al.  A lunar density model consistent with topographic, gravitational, librational, and seismic data , 1977 .

[14]  Hitoshi Mizutani,et al.  LUNAR-A mission : Goals and status , 2003 .

[15]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  Seismic velocity structure of the lunar mantle , 1983 .

[16]  John W. C. Robinson.  STATISTICALLY OPTIMAL STACKING OF SEISMIC DATA , 1970 .

[17]  David R. Lammlein,et al.  Lunar seismicity and tectonics , 1977 .

[18]  N. R. Goins,et al.  Lunar Seismology: the Internal Structure of the Moon. Ph.D. Thesis , 1978 .

[19]  Yosio Nakamura,et al.  New identification of deep moonquakes in the Apollo lunar seismic data , 2003 .

[20]  Kaare Lund Rasmussen,et al.  A new seismic velocity model for the Moon from a Monte Carlo inversion of the Apollo lunar seismic data , 2000 .

[21]  J. T. Ratcliff,et al.  Lunar rotational dissipation in solid body and molten core , 2001 .

[22]  Philippe Lognonné,et al.  A new seismic model of the Moon: implications for structure, thermal evolution and formation of the Moon , 2003 .