10031 - High-K ilmenite basalt
Collection:
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope

Fact sheet

10031 - High-K ilmenite basalt

10031 is a high-K ilmenite basalt. The rock cooled quickly (quenched) after eruption and texturally it can be described as a vitrophyre (a glass-rich rock with some larger crystals). The rock was erupted and cooled around 3.6 billion years old ago.

In thin section, it contains phenocrysts of olivine and the rare iron-magnesium titanite, armalcolite. The matrix of this volcanic rock is composed of a fine-grained to glassy groundmass. The armalcolite is mantled by rutile-bearing ilmenite. Platy ilmenite with feathery edges, pyroxene and minute troilite spheres can also be observed in reflected light. You may spot some small black holes in a grid pattern in the glue on this sample - we believe this may have been caused by analysis using an electron microprobe.

Further details of this and other Apollo samples are here: http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/

About this collection

The Apollo 11 samples create an iconic collection since they were the first rocks collected by humankind that were returned to Earth from another solar system body. The Apollo 11 team collected and returned 22 kg of rock and soil samples.

Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on 16 July 1969. An estimated 530 million people watched Armstrong's televised image and heard his voice describe the event as he took "...one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" on 20 July 1969.

Sample details

Collection: Apollo 11
Type
igneous
Rock-forming mineral
olivine
pyroxene
feldspar
glass
Accessory minerals
armalcolite
troilite
metallic iron
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: