STUDY OF 12.5CM RADAR AS A MEANS OF MAPPING TiO2 IN LUNAR BASALTS

Previous work using neutron spectrometer data and earth-based 70 cm radar has proven useful in mapping TiO2 on the lunar surface but with coarse resolution. Spectral data from the Clementine mission attempted to map TiO2 at higher resolution but accuracy was low. With new 12.5 cm Mini-RF radar data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter I attempted to build a higher resolution TiO2 map by comparing the radar data to neutron spectrometer and spectral data. Initial investigation into 12.5 cm radar as a means of mapping TiO2 revealed large standard deviations in the radar data such all the radar data points were statistically indistinguishable. Even after data averaging of overlapping radar swaths the wide range in radar values made it impossible to find any correlations with the neutron or spectral data. At 12.5 cm, surface roughness has too much of an affect over radar backscatter to be able to discern any affects related to rock composition.