The role of very fine particle sizes in the reflectance spectroscopy of plagioclase-bearing mixtures: New understanding for the interpretation of the finest sizes of the lunar regolith

(1) fine sizes act principally on reflectance and on spectral contrast (with the former increasing and the latter decreasing); (2) very fine plagioclase has a blue slope in the Near Infrared and very shallow 1250 nm band depth, close to zero; (3) consequently, the plagioclase band is always shallower than mafic bands; (4) in mixtures with olivine, the composite band center always shows the typical olivine value, differently from coarser mixtures; and (5) mafic materials have a blue slope in the Short Wavelength Infrared Region, a more V-shaped 1 µm pyroxene absorption and the 1 µm mafic band centers are shifted by ca. 40 nm vs. coarse sizes, reflecting a different weight within the crystal field absorption of the mafic component in very fine size. We also evidenced that a coarse plagioclase could be overestimated, while a very fine one could be underestimated if compared with the 63-125 µm size.