The samples in question, 73002 and 73001, are part of a c.70 cm core of regolith collected near Lara Crater within the narrow Taurus-Littrow Valley<\/a> on the moon.\u00a0 This site is geologically very interesting.\u00a0 As EOPortal puts it<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Apollo 17 landing site lies within the narrow Taurus-Littrow Valley, surrounded by several steep mountains including the North and South Massifs, with a fault scarp, caused by a difference in elevation between the two sides of the fault, cutting across the entire region.<\/em><\/p>\n The floor of the valley consists of lava and ejecta from impact events. The valley is depicted in this image, which I have annotated to show the key features:-<\/p>\n Annotated image showing the landslide on the moon sampled by the astronauts on Apollo 17. This is Hasselblad photograph taken from the LM Challenger as it passed over the Taurus-Littrow Valley. Image AS17-147-22464 [NASA].<\/p><\/div>.<\/p>\n As the image shows, the sample was collected from a landslide deposit on the moon, the origin of which was the massif shouwn in the image above.\u00a0 There were good reasons for sampling a landslide – it provided access to deposits that originated on the hillside above, which was inaccessible to the astronauts, giving the geologists a better opportunity to understand the lunar geology.<\/p>\n A part of the aim of re-analysing these samples is to try to better understand this landslide.\u00a0 For example, a key issue is whether the landslide was triggered by an impact event, by movement of the fault or by another process.<\/p>\n![\"Landslide](\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/04\/20_04-Moon-2.jpg\")