Descartes Highlands

[3] Before Apollo 16 sampled the Descartes Highlands, it was believed that volcanic material would be abundant in the area after visual analysis of the features there.

[4] Astronauts Young and Duke visited Sudbury, Ontario, Canada in July 1971 to examine shatter cones.

Sudbury is a site of a large meteor impact exhibiting substantial evidence of shatter cone geology.

All of the preceding Apollo landing missions sampled Lunar mare material, either directly or indirectly.

Priority was also given to locating and obtaining samples of old highland material that was older than the Imbrium impact in order to give insight to the geologic timeline and composition of the Moon.