Geological Society of America

T14 Perseverance at Jezero Crater—Characterizing an Ancient Crater Lake Basin on Mars

Sunday, 10 October 2021
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Portland Ballroom 256 (Hybrid Room)

CHEMISTRY, MINERALOGY, AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ROCKS AND SOILS TARGETED BY SUPERCAM AT JEZERO CRATER

Paper number: T14-11
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:45 AM – 11:00 AM

Authors

Roger Wiens Presenting Author
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Lucia Mandon
Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, Meudon
Agnes Cousin
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Toulouse
Ann Ollila
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Olivier Beyssac
Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris
Sylvestre Maurice
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Toulouse
Jeffrey Johnson
Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD
Nicolas Mangold
U. Nantes, Nantes
Sam Clegg
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Cathy Quantin
Universite de Lyon, Lyon

Abstract

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater ~2 km from the delta front of Neretva Vallis and just E of a NE-SW strip of rugged terrain named Seitah. Initial images revealed relatively flat rocks as well as upright boulders, some of the latter strongly pitted at scales of ~1 mm to several cm. The first chemical and mineral spectra concur that rock surfaces are hydrated. VISIR and LIBS both show ferrihydrite compositions at some observation points, and LIBS observes some ilmenite compositions. Near-IR spectra also suggest some nontronite. Landing site elemental chemistry generally indicates pyroxene compositions and numerous points with glassy compositions variably depleted in Al and enriched in Si relative to feldspars. Starting around Sol 70, as the rover headed S and then SW, olivine became evident in both IR spectra and LIBS chemistry in 1-3 mm pebbles (though not in the rocks) with Mg #s ~70. Audio recordings of LIBS plasmas indicate relatively hard rock surfaces. Heterogeneity among multiple LIBS observations (~300 µm dia. FOV) on the same target suggests grain sizes are at least that large on average. Sparse SuperCam Raman spectra of exposed rock surfaces may show weak silica glass signatures; time-resolved fluorescence has been observed, likely from Fe³⁺ substituting in feldspars.

SuperCam’s imaging supports investigations of both local and distant rock textures. In local rocks, some vesicular and ropy textures may suggest igneous flows, and the texture of the Seitah region (Tarnas et al., Sun et al., this meeting) show a few protruding layered, likely sedimentary outcrops. Observations of delta remnant Kodiak (~1.4 km from the landing site) indicates classic Gilbert delta stratigraphy. Both Kodiak and the delta front have conglomeratic boulders in the upper portions (Gupta et al., this meeting). Other topographic highs, Santa Cruz (~2.5 km NE) and Pilot Pinnacle (< 1 km SW), are relatively featureless in images and VISIR spectra.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to all on the SuperCam and M2020 teams who contributed to this work, including V. Sautter, T. Bosak, S. Sharma, J. Madariaga, S. Le Mouelic, A. Brown, B. Chide, K. Benzerara, A. Udry, et al.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 53, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2021AM-367022

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