Abstract:

According to the Giant Impact hypothesis, the Moon was born from a great impact event, during which the ejected material was splashed to the earth orbit and then accreted to form the Moon. The original lunar core and mantle differentiated rapidly, and the global molten magma resulted in the formation of the lunar magma ocean, which evolved into the lunar crust by crystallization differentiation and solidification. The impact event was the most important geological process in the following lunar history, and a large number of craters and basins of different sizes came into being in different periods. Especially, the greatest basins were all produced in the early history of the Moon. Lunar map is an important tool to study the origin and evolution of the Moon. The first series of lunar maps were completed during 1960s to 1970s, which summarized the achievements in the Apollo age. The second lunar exploration upsurge started from 1990s, and a large number of new findings about the lunar origin and evolution have been discovered. However, never has a lunar geological map been published. This condition makes it very urgent to carry out a new lunar mapping plan to conclude the exploration and study results in the postApollo age. In this lunar mapping plan, much more attention should be paid to the scale, the subdivisions of lunar geochronology, and the expression of lunar tectonic and geological formation.

Key words:  Moon, origin and evolution, the geological map