Preliminary report on the geology and field petrology at the Apollo 16 landing site

The Apollo 16 mission was especially notable in the continuing program of manned exploration of the Moon. It accomplished the first landing in the lunar highlands and the crew successfully explored and sampled a kind of terrane never before visited on -the lunar surface. As John Young put it when he first stepped onto the lunar surface "There you are, our mysterious and unknown Descartes highland plains, Apollo 16 is going to change your image." We are confident that the descriptions by the crew and the returned samples and photographs will, in time, permit us to extrapolate the geologic environment found here to many other similar areas throughout the highlands. The geologic diversity and significance of the site, the extended traverse capability provided by three EVAs and the Lunar Roving Vehicle, the real time television coverage of the site and of crew activities, and especially, the outstanding performance of the astronaut crew contributed to an exceedingly successful mission.