During the six Apollo missions, astronauts collected 2196 lunar samples, nearly all of which have been studied over the past five decades. Six Apollo samples remained unexamined until 2019 and were saved to be analyzed by the next generation of lunar scientists using advanced modern laboratory facilities. Now more than 50 years after Apollo, NASA is returning to the Moon with Artemis and will return geologic samples from a different region of the lunar surface than Apollo. Curation will play an instrumental role in helping to prepare for the safe return of these valuable samples, ensuring their integrity during all stages of the missions, and thus maximizing their scientific return. To prepare for the return of these samples, NASA initiated the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) Program to open previously unstudied samples including unopened double drive tube 73002 and 73001 (also vacuum-sealed) from the Apollo 17 mission to the Taurus-Littrow Valley. The ANGSA program was designed to function as a low-cost analog sample return mission and served as a testing ground to understand processes, update techniques, and prepare for the preliminary examination (PE) of the to-be-returned lunar samples with Artemis. New and advanced curation techniques were developed and applied to support the analyses of 73002/73001 during the PE. Furthermore, cutting-edge analytical instruments such as X-ray Computed Tomography were utilized to aid in PE that were unavailable during Apollo. These efforts are equipping the Artemis generation for future lunar missions and lessons learned from the PE of ANGSA samples will be directly applied to Artemis.

Carbonaceous chondrites (CCs) contain the earliest preserved Solar System material, and objects containing this material are targets of numerous sample return missions. Both laboratory and remote sensing data have shown that this material can be highly porous, but the origin and nature of this porosity is currently not well understood. Because the majority of porosity within CCs is submicron to micron in size, previous lab efforts have been restricted by the limited observational scale required to examine this porosity with currently available techniques. Here we present results from a newly developed technique that allows submicron porosity to be examined in 3D within a 12 mm3 volume of CM Murchison. We use X-ray computed tomography combined with the highly attenuating noble gas xenon to characterize porosity well below the spatial resolution of the data (3.01 µm/voxel). This method not only allows examination of submicron porosity within a significantly larger volume than previously possible but also reveals the full three-dimensional porosity structure and pore connectivity. Our data reveal that some fine-grained rims (FGRs) surrounding chondrules have a complex 3D porosity structure, suggesting formation of the FGRs via dust aggregates or variable secondary processing around the rim after accretion.

A methodology has been developed, detailing the theory and workflow, for applying the double-difference relocation method to acoustic emission (AE) event location in high-pressure/high-temperature deformation experiments in the multi-anvil apparatus. The process is predicated on the fact that events originating from a common source region will traverse similar ray paths from the source to the receiver and display similar waveforms in seismograms. This implies their travel-time difference results only from their spatial offset and any velocity heterogeneity along the ray path is negated. To demonstrate the efficacy of this approach we applied it to a transformational faulting experiment on the isostructural olivine analogue Mg 2 GeO 4 under controlled deformation at 2.5 GPa and 700 °C while simultaneously monitoring stress, strain, and acoustic activity. Waveforms from all 1456 AE events were cross-correlated to measure differential arrival times and construct multiplet groups of similar events. In total, 110 multiplets were identified whose size is dominated by two large groups containing 272 and 202 events. Relocation of these two multiplets using the double-difference method significantly reduces event separation and improves location uncertainty by more than an order of magnitude when compared to absolute location techniques whose uncertainty rivals that of the sample size. In particular, event locations of the two largest multiplets reveal two dense clusters whose spatial geometry closely mirrors that of macroscopic faulting displayed in computerized tomography images of the recovered sample. In this way, we are able to link specific faults with their associated AE events, which would otherwise not be possible using traditional absolute location methods.

Phase 1 of the Colorado Plateau Coring Project (CPCP-I) recovered a total of over 850m of stratigraphically overlapping core from three coreholes at two sites in the Early to Middle and Late Triassic age largely fluvial Moenkopi and Chinle formations in Petrified Forest National Park (PFNP), northeastern Arizona, USA. Coring took place during November and December of 2013 and the project is now in its post-drilling science phase. The CPCP cores have abundant detrital zircon-producing layers (with survey LA-ICP-MS dates selectively resampled for CA-ID-TIMS U-Pb ages ranging in age from at least 210 to 241 Ma), which together with their magnetic polarity stratigraphy demonstrate that a globally exportable timescale can be produced from these continental sequences and in the process show that a prominent gap in the calibrated Phanerozoic record can be filled. The portion of core CPCP-PFNP13-1A for which the polarity stratigraphy has been completed thus far spans similar to 215 to 209Ma of the Late Triassic age, and strongly validates the longer Newark-Hartford Astrochronostratigraphic-calibrated magnetic Polarity Time-Scale (APTS) based on cores recovered in the 1990s during the Newark Basin Coring Project (NBCP). Core recovery was similar to 100% in all holes (Table 1). The coreholes were inclined similar to 60-75 degrees approximately to the south to ensure azimuthal orientation in the nearly flat-lying bedding, critical to the interpretation of paleomagentic polarity stratigraphy. The two longest of the cores (CPCP-PFNP13-1A and 2B) were CT-scanned in their entirety at the University of Texas High Resolution X-ray CT Facility in Austin, TX, and subsequently along with 2A, all cores were split and processed at the CSDCO/LacCore Facility, in Minneapolis, MN, where they were scanned for physical property logs and imaging. While remaining the property of the Federal Government, the archive half of each core is curated at the NSF-sponsored LacCore Core Repository and the working half is stored at the Rutgers University Core Repository in Piscataway, NJ, where the initial sampling party was held in 2015 with several additional sampling events following. Additional planned study will recover the rest of the polarity stratigraphy of the cores as additional zircon ages, sedimentary structure and paleosol facies analysis, stable isotope geochemistry, and calibrated XRF core scanning are accomplished. Together with strategic outcrop studies in Petrified Forest National Park and environs, these cores will allow the vast amount of surface paleontological and paleoenvironmental information recorded in the continental Triassic of western North America to be confidently placed in a secure context along with important events such as the giant Manicouagan impact at similar to 215.5 Ma (Ramezani et al., 2005) and long wavelength astronomical cycles pacing global environmental change and trends in atmospheric gas composition during the dawn of the dinosaurs.