{"id":204991,"date":"2025-01-31T02:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T08:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/moon-is-not-as-geologically-dead-as-previously-thought-new-study-reveals"},"modified":"2025-01-31T02:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T08:10:09","slug":"moon-is-not-as-geologically-dead-as-previously-thought-new-study-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/moon-is-not-as-geologically-dead-as-previously-thought-new-study-reveals","title":{"rendered":"Moon is not as \u2018geologically dead\u2019 as previously thought, new study reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists have studied the moon\u2019s surface for decades to help piece together its complex geological and evolutionary history. Evidence from the lunar maria (dark, flat areas on the moon filled with solidified lava) suggested that the moon experienced significant compression in its distant past. Researchers suspected that large, arching ridges on the moon\u2019s near side were formed by contractions that occurred billions of years ago\u2014concluding that the moon\u2019s maria has remained dormant ever since.<\/p>\n

However, a new study<\/a> reveals that what lies beneath the lunar surface may be more dynamic than previously believed. Two Smithsonian Institution scientists and a University of Maryland geologist discovered that small ridges<\/a> located on the moon\u2019s far side were notably younger than previously studied ridges on the near side. Their findings were published in The Planetary Science Journal<\/i> on January 21, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany scientists believe that most of the moon\u2019s geological movements happened two and a half, maybe three billion years ago,\u201d said Jaclyn Clark, an assistant research scientist in UMD\u2019s Department of Geology. \u201cBut we\u2019re seeing that these tectonic landforms have been recently active in the last billion years and may still be active today. These small mare ridges seem to have formed within the last 200 million years or so, which is relatively recent considering the moon\u2019s timescale.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have studied the moon\u2019s surface for decades to help piece together its complex geological and evolutionary history. Evidence from the lunar maria (dark, flat areas on the moon filled with solidified lava) suggested that the moon experienced significant compression in its distant past. Researchers suspected that large, arching ridges on the moon\u2019s near side [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}