Manganese‐Rich Sandstones as an Indicator of Ancient Oxic Lake Water Conditions in Gale Crater, Mars
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to J. Hurowitz.
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Collection of samples that could be returned to Earth from the floor of Jezero crater is a major goal of the Mars 2020 mission. Laboratory analyses of these will expand exploration of Jezero, a Noachian crater on Mars characterized by a delta–lake system with high potential for habitability. The samples will also be used to test current ideas about the early planetary evolution of Mars. The Perseverance rover has collected samples from two members of the Máaz formation, mapped in orbital images as the Crater floor fractured rough unit by [1]. Type localities of the Roubion and Rochette members have been targeted and abraded prior to sample collection. Here we summarize these sampling activities and the potential of sampling the Chal member of Máaz. A similar summary for samples collected from the Séítah formation is described in Hickman-Lewis et al. (this meeting).
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In February 2021, the Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars. The crater floor was found to be composed of lava flows and cumulate rocks. These magmatic rocks appear to have undergone some limited aqueous alteration; however, it is not clear whether this alteration is related to the lacustrine phase of the crater. After completing its exploration of the crater floor, Perseverance reached the foot of the Jezero western fan in late April 2022 (sol ~422). Long-distance images acquired earlier in the mission had already confirmed the deltaic nature of the fan, which had long been suspected from orbital observations. Between April and December 2022, Perseverance investigated the basal layers of the delta at two locations named Hawksbill Gap and Cape Nukshak, which are ~400 m apart. Here, we present an overview of the geochemistry and mineralogy of the delta rocks as observed by SuperCam and show that these rocks record a diversity of past aqueous alteration environments.
In April 2022, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover arrived at the base of the ancient delta in Jezero crater after completing the first year of its mission exploring and sampling aqueously altered igneous rocks of the present-day crater floor. Perseverance then spent ~200 sols exploring the lower ~25 m of rock exposed within the eastern scarp of the Jezero delta, a sedimentary sequence informally named the ‘Shenandoah’ formation. This study describes the sedimentology and stratigraphy of the Shenandoah formation explored by Perseverance at two sections—'Cape Nukshak’ and ‘Hawksbill Gap’—including a description, interpretation, and depositional framework for the facies that comprise it.
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