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  • Matters Arising
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Reply to: No 182W evidence for early Moon formation

Nature Geoscience volume 14, pages 716–718 (2021)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 13 September 2021

replying to T. S. Kruijer et al. Nature Geoscience https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00820-2 (2021)

Knowing the age of the Moon1 is fundamental to understanding planetary formation. Although substantial evidence supports lunar formation in the first 75 million years of the Solar System, we appreciate the points raised by Kruijer et al.2 in their Matters Arising article. As their comment is limited to numerical modelling approaches, we are pleased to provide a short evaluation of existing lunar and terrestrial data, which results in a refined assessment of lunar W isotope systematics that may serve to optimize numerical models. The data affirm that the Moon must have formed early, and thus remains old.

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Fig. 1: Plot of μ182W versus HSE relative to primitive mantle (PM) for different Archean cratons compared with modelled curves for missing late accretion.
Fig. 2: Plot of 182W versus W/Th illustrating the compositions of the lunar mantle compared with a putative proto-Earth mantle devoid of late-accreted components.

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Acknowledgements

M.M.T. and C.M. acknowledge funding through the European Commission by ERC grant 669666 ‘Infant Earth.’ M.M.T. and V.D. acknowledge funding from EoS project ET-HOME. V.D. acknowledges funding from the FNRS-FRS ERC StG ‘IsoSyC’. R.F. acknowledges research funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG grants FO 698/6-1 and FO 698/13-1). P.S. acknowledges funding from UoC emerging fields grant ‘ULDETIS’. F.L. acknowledges funding from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universität zu Köln, Cologne, Germany

    Maxwell Marzban Thiemens, Jonas Tusch, Raúl O. C. Fonseca, Mario Fischer-Gödde & Carsten Münker

  2. Laboratoire G-TIME, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Maxwell Marzban Thiemens & Vinciane Debaille

  3. Analytical, Environmental and Geo-Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Maxwell Marzban Thiemens

  4. Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Geophysics, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Raúl O. C. Fonseca

  5. Isotope Geology Laboratory, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Felipe Leitzke

  6. Hot Laboratory Division (AHL), Paul Scherer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland

    Peter Sprung

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Correspondence to Maxwell Marzban Thiemens.

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Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Stephen Mojzsis and Alan Brandon for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Thiemens, M.M., Tusch, J., O. C. Fonseca, R. et al. Reply to: No 182W evidence for early Moon formation. Nat. Geosci. 14, 716–718 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00821-1

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