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Hadley–Apennine is a region on the near side of Earth's Moon that served as the landing site for the American
Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the Apollo program and the fourth Moon landing. It was the first List of Apollo missions#Alphabetical mission types, J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greate ...
mission, the fourth crewed landing on the Moon and the first of the " J-missions", in July 1971. The site is located on the eastern edge of
Mare Imbrium Mare Imbrium (Latin ''imbrium'', the "Sea of Showers" or "Sea of Rains") is a vast lunar mare, lava plain within the Imbrium Basin on the Moon and is one of the larger craters in the Solar System. The Imbrium Basin formed from the collision ...
on a lava plain known as Palus Putredinis. Hadley–Apennine is bordered by the
Montes Apenninus Montes Apenninus are a rugged mountain range on the northern part of the Moon's near side. They are named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy. With their formation dating back about 3.9 billion years, Montes Apenninus are fairly old. Descri ...
(often referred to as "Apennine Front"), a mountain range, and Hadley Rille, a meandering channel, on the east and west, respectively. Data obtained from the composition of soil samples collected on Apollo 15 show that most (about 90%) of the samples from the Apennine Front are brown-
glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...
breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...
s, and approximately 60–70% obtained from the
mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equidae, equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more th ...
surface are
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
. Although the basalts seem to vary in their texture, their ages appear to be approximately the same. Most of the samples obtained on the Apennine Front are
KREEP KREEP, an acronym built from the letters K (the atomic symbol for potassium), REE (rare-earth elements) and P (for phosphorus), is a geochemical component of some lunar impact breccia and basaltic rocks. Its most significant feature is somewhat e ...
(
potassium Potassium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol K (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number19. It is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to easily cut with a knife. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to ...
,
rare-earth element The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set o ...
s,
phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol P and atomic number 15. All elemental forms of phosphorus are highly Reactivity (chemistry), reactive and are therefore never found in nature. They can nevertheless be prepared ar ...
) materials,
anorthosite Anorthosite () is a phaneritic, intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock characterized by its composition: mostly plagioclase feldspar (90–100%), with a minimal mafic component (0–10%). Pyroxene, ilmenite, magnetite, and olivine are the mafic ...
s, recrystallized
norite Norite is a mafic Intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed largely of the calcium-rich plagioclase labradorite, orthopyroxene, and olivine. The name ''norite'' is derived from Norway, by its Norwegian name ''Norge''. Norite, also known ...
, or recrystallized breccia.


Geography and geology


Location

Hadley–Apennine is located west of the
Montes Apenninus Montes Apenninus are a rugged mountain range on the northern part of the Moon's near side. They are named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy. With their formation dating back about 3.9 billion years, Montes Apenninus are fairly old. Descri ...
and east of Hadley Rille. The Apennine mountains form a
escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...
that rises higher above the Hadley plain than the Himalayan front above the plains of
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
and
Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
. Hadley Rille (also referred to as Rima Hadley) is located to the west of the Apollo 15 landing site and was the subject of substantial investigation during that mission. The feature, named from nearby
Mons Hadley Mons Hadley is a massif in the northern portion of the Montes Apenninus, a range in the northern hemisphere of the Moon. It has a height of above the adjacent plain and a maximum diameter of 25 km at the base. To the southwest of thi ...
, is a channel that was likely formed by
volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...
processes earlier in the history of the Moon.


Apollo 15 landing site

The American
Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the Apollo program and the fourth Moon landing. It was the first List of Apollo missions#Alphabetical mission types, J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greate ...
mission, the first of the J-series missions that featured both increased scientific capability and the use of the
Lunar Roving Vehicle The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) is a Battery electric vehicle, battery-powered four-wheeled Rover (space exploration), rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the American Apollo program (Apollo 15, 15, Apollo 16, 16, and Apollo 17 ...
, landed in an area of the Hadley–Apennine region to the west of the Apennine Front situated between the mountains Mons Hadley and
Mons Hadley Delta Mons Hadley Delta (δ) is a massif in the northern portion of the Montes Apenninus, a range in the northern hemisphere of the Moon adjacent to Mare Imbrium. It has a height of 3.6 km above the plains to the north and west. To the north of ...
to the northeast and south, respectively. This landing site was selected with the objectives of exploring the Apennine Front, Hadley Rille, and other geologic features in the area. Apollo 15 was the first mission in which landing sites were not restricted to equatorial areas. The Hadley–Apennine site was chosen with the specific objectives of sampling material from deeper within the Moon than had been obtained from the
Fra Mauro formation The Fra Mauro formation (or Fra Mauro Highlands) is a Geology of the Moon, formation on the near side of the Moon, near side of Moon, Earth's Moon that served as the landing site for the American Apollo 14 mission in 1971. It is named after th ...
on
Apollo 14 Apollo 14 (January 31February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to Moon landing, land on the Moon, and the first to land in the Geology of the Moon#Highlands, lunar highlands. It was the las ...
and investigating Hadley Rille, a sinuous rille possibly formed by volcanic activity. The site had been of interest to mission planners since early in the program. During the early stages of Apollo landing site planning, Apollo 19 (which was originally planned to be the fourth and penultimate J-mission of the initial exploration portion of the Apollo program) was tentatively set to land in the Hadley–Apennine region, albeit at a point south of the eventual Apollo 15 site and west of Hadley Rille—near the Carlos pit at the southwestern terminus of the rille. The
Marius Hills The Marius Hills are a set of Lava, volcanic Dome (geology), domes located in Oceanus Procellarum on Earth's Moon. The domes are thought to have formed from lavas more Viscosity, viscous than those that formed lunar mares. These domes average ap ...
area in
Oceanus Procellarum Oceanus Procellarum ( ; from ) is a vast lunar mare on the western edge of the near side of the Moon. It is the only one of the lunar maria to be called an "Oceanus" (ocean), due to its size: Oceanus Procellarum is the largest of the maria ("s ...
was also considered for Apollo 15, but mission planners determined that a landing on the edge of Mare Imbrium at the Hadley–Apennine site would be more scientifically fruitful than the Marius Hills alternative, and placing a
seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground displacement and shaking such as caused by quakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The out ...
at Hadley–Apennine, given the locations of seismic packages from previous Apollo expeditions, would create a more optimal configuration for seismic study.


Apennine Front

The Apennine mountains are hypothesized to be
fault-block mountain Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by Tectonics, tectonic and localized stresses in Crust (geology), Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by Fault (geology) ...
s displaced upward and segmented by the impact that formed Mare Imbrium. The frontal escarpment of Mons Hadley Delta is believed to be an exposed segment of the pre-Imbrium impact lunar crust. This made the mountain one of the mission's primary locations to visit, as doing so would allow the astronauts to obtain samples of the lunar crust as it was before the creation of Mare Imbrium. The area of the Apennine mountains between Mons Hadley and Silver Spur (a mountain just southeast of Mons Hadley Delta), although lacking an official designation on maps and other official mission literature, was informally referred to as the "Swann Range" by Apollo 15 astronauts
David Scott David Randolph Scott (born June 6, 1932) is an American retired test pilot and NASA astronaut who was the List of Apollo astronauts#People who have walked on the Moon, seventh person to walk on the Moon. Selected as part of the NASA Astronaut ...
and
James Irwin James Benson Irwin (March 17, 1930 – August 8, 1991) was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force Aviator, pilot. He served as Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15, the fourth human lunar landin ...
, after mission geology team leader Gordon Swann. One of the mountains in the Swann Range was informally referred to by the astronauts as "Big Rock Mountain", after the Apollo Program Director at the time of the mission,
Rocco Petrone Rocco Anthony Petrone (March 31, 1926 – August 24, 2006) was an American mechanical engineer, U.S. Army officer and NASA official. He served as director of launch operations at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, Kennedy Space Center (KSC) ...
. The composition of the samples collected by the Apollo 15 astronauts from the Apennine Front, other than
KREEP KREEP, an acronym built from the letters K (the atomic symbol for potassium), REE (rare-earth elements) and P (for phosphorus), is a geochemical component of some lunar impact breccia and basaltic rocks. Its most significant feature is somewhat e ...
(
potassium Potassium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol K (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number19. It is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to easily cut with a knife. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to ...
,
rare-earth element The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set o ...
s,
phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol P and atomic number 15. All elemental forms of phosphorus are highly Reactivity (chemistry), reactive and are therefore never found in nature. They can nevertheless be prepared ar ...
) materials, included
anorthosite Anorthosite () is a phaneritic, intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock characterized by its composition: mostly plagioclase feldspar (90–100%), with a minimal mafic component (0–10%). Pyroxene, ilmenite, magnetite, and olivine are the mafic ...
, and recrystallized norite and breccia. Unknown before the Apollo 15 mission, there are parallel linear patterns on the faces of the mountains in the area. Although they appeared to be occurrences of fracturing or
layering Layering can refer to: * Layering (horticulture), a means of vegetative propagation * Layering (finance), a strategy in high frequency trading * Layering (linguistics), a principle by which grammaticalisation can be detected * Surface layering ...
appearing through the regolith, determining this is made difficult by the lighting circumstances during the mission. A dark band on Mount Hadley, believed to be a marking left by lava after receding, was observed by the Apollo 15 crew. Additionally, a thick
regolith Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
layer on the lower slopes of the mountains and a thin cover of debris on the upper slopes are suggested by the relative absence of large boulders on the lower mountain flanks.


Rima Hadley

Rima Hadley, a
sinuous Sinuosity, sinuosity index, or sinuosity coefficient of a continuously differentiable curve having at least one inflection point is the ratio of the curvilinear length (along the curve) and the Euclidean distance ( straight line) between the ...
rille Rille (German for 'groove') is typically used to describe any of the long, narrow depressions in the surface of the Moon that resemble channels. The Latin term is ''rima'', plural ''rimae''. Typically, a rille can be several kilometers w ...
located west of the Apollo 15 landing site, begins in an area of low
domes A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
at an elongated crater,
Béla Béla may refer to: * Béla (crater), an elongated lunar crater * Béla (given name), a common Hungarian male given name See also * Bela (disambiguation) * Belá (disambiguation) * Bělá (disambiguation) Bělá may refer to: Places in the Cze ...
, and runs on to the North along the Apennine Mountain Range. Some research has suggested that both the rille and Béla are
volcanic vent A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...
s, and
lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a Natural satellite, moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a Fissure vent, fractu ...
flows created the features. Another hypothesis suggests that the rille was originally a
lava tube A lava tube, more rarely called a pyroduct, is a 'roofed conduit through which molten lava travels away from its vent'. If lava in the tube drains out, it will leave an empty cave. Lava tubes are common in low-viscosity volcanic systems. La ...
, the roof of which collapsed, creating the current appearance of the rille. Several large boulders, some of which are as large as houses, are strewn about the feature's floor. The elongated crater Béla, which forms the beginning of Rima Hadley, could have been formed by the collapse of a shallow
magma chamber A magma chamber is a large pool of liquid rock beneath the surface of the Earth. The molten rock, or magma, in such a chamber is less dense than the surrounding country rock, which produces buoyant forces on the magma that tend to drive it u ...
. Visual observation suggests that the same is the case with other lunar rilles with similar features at their beginnings. Rima Hadley typically ranges in depth between , but is approximately deep at the Apollo 15 landing site. The feature has a cumulative length of about and an average width of about . The sides of the rille, at the Apollo 15 site, slope downwards at an angle of about 25 degrees. Before samples were returned from the Moon during the
Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...
, several scientists believed that the feature and other similar features were formed by flowing water. This hypothesis has since been changed, however, to attribute the process of the feature's creation to volcanism. Rima Hadley is interpreted as one of the most defined sinuous rilles on the lunar surface. Outcrops of rock were observed by the Apollo 15 crew on both the near and far sides of the rille and were photographed and, in the case of outcrops on the near rim, were sampled. Layering in these outcrops is evident from the photos taken of them by the crew. Some of the strata observed have thicknesses of up to about and appear to vary in
albedo Albedo ( ; ) is the fraction of sunlight that is Diffuse reflection, diffusely reflected by a body. It is measured on a scale from 0 (corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation) to 1 (corresponding to a body that reflects ...
(reflectivity) and texture. Large boulders near the bottom of the rille are believed to be blocks that have broken off of the outcrops above.


South Cluster and North Complex

The South Cluster, a crater cluster located to the south of the Apollo 15 site near Mons Hadley Delta, is believed to have formed as a result of a secondary impact, or the impact of
ejecta Ejecta (; ) are particles ejected from an area. In volcanology, in particular, the term refers to particles including pyroclastic rock, pyroclastic materials (tephra) that came out of a explosive eruption, volcanic explosion and magma eruption v ...
/debris from a larger impact elsewhere on the Moon, probably the crater
Autolycus In Greek mythology, Autolycus (; ) was a robber who had the power to metamorphose or make invisible the things he stole. He had his residence on Mount Parnassus and was renowned among men for his cunning and oaths. Family There are a number of d ...
about northwest of the cluster's location. This meant that the Apollo 15 astronauts were able to sample material from other parts of the lunar surface without traversing a great distance. The feature also allowed the astronauts to sample material that was originally located deep within the Moon. The south rim of
Dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...
crater within the cluster was visited by the astronauts. The
North Complex North Complex is a feature on Earth's Moon, a group of hills in the Hadley–Apennine region. It was an intended destination for the astronauts of the Apollo 15 mission, but due to problems extracting a rock core near the landing site, there w ...
is a collection of several landforms, including craters, that were thought to have been formed by volcanic activity. Although the Apollo 15 astronauts were to visit this feature, they were unable to do so due to time constraints and time-consuming issues in obtaining
core sample A core sample is a cylindrical section of (usually) a naturally-occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, such as sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube, called a core drill. The ...
s.


See also


Notes


References


External links


Hadley Rille and the Mountains of the Moon
— Labeled oblique LROC image
LTO-41B4 Hadley
— Lunar Topographic Orthophotomap
Apollo Image Atlas
— Images of Hadley–Apennine
LAC-41 Montes Apenninus
— Area map
I-463 Montes Apenninus
— USGS Geologic Atlas area map
41B4S4(25) Apollo 15 Traverses
— Apollo 15 traverse map

— Catalog of samples from Hadley–Apennine {{DEFAULTSORT:Hadley-Apennine (lunar region) LQ12 quadrangle Apollo 15