I don't have the answers...but I have another question...

Think about the day, ever so long ago, when the moon *first* became tidally locked to the earth. It was rotating, but more and more slowly...

Does it just slow down to a complete halt, or is there a period of nutation, rocking forward and backward, perhaps as the earth tugs at some largish gravitational unevenness somewhere in the moon's crust?

Is it an asymptotical decline, or is there a "catastrophe" of some sort?

I've been thinking on this for some time, but don't know how to put together the model...

Silas