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The mineral diversity of Jezero crater: Evidence for possible lacustrine carbonates on Mars
Anderson, Ryan B.; Horgan, Briony H. N.; Dromart, Gilles +2 more
Noachian-aged Jezero crater is the only known location on Mars where clear orbital detections of carbonates are found in close proximity to clear fluvio-lacustrine features indicating the past presence of a paleolake; however, it is unclear whether or not the carbonates in Jezero are related to the lacustrine activity. This distinction is critical…
Geology of the InSight landing site on Mars
Rodriguez, S.; Forget, F.; Hauber, E. +44 more
The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft landed successfully on Mars and imaged the surface to characterize the surficial geology. Here we report on the geology and subsurface structure of the landing site to aid in situ geophysical investigations. InSight landed in a degraded impact cr…
Photogeologic Map of the Perseverance Rover Field Site in Jezero Crater Constructed by the Mars 2020 Science Team
Liu, Yang; Mangold, Nicolas; Johnson, Jeffrey R. +64 more
The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing site is located within Jezero crater, a ∼50 km diameter impact crater interpreted to be a Noachian-aged lake basin inside the western edge of the Isidis impact structure. Jezero hosts remnants of a fluvial delta, inlet and outlet valleys, and infill deposits containing diverse carbonate, mafic, and hydrated…
Valley formation on early Mars by subglacial and fluvial erosion
Osinski, Gordon R.; Grau Galofre, Anna; Jellinek, A. Mark
The southern highlands of Mars are dissected by hundreds of valley networks, which are evidence that water once sculpted the surface. Characterizing the mechanisms of valley incision may constrain early Mars climate and the search for ancient life. Previous interpretations of the geological record require precipitation and surface water runoff to …
Fluvial Regimes, Morphometry, and Age of Jezero Crater Paleolake Inlet Valleys and Their Exobiological Significance for the 2020 Rover Mission Landing Site
Mangold, Nicolas; Quantin-Nataf, Cathy; Massé, Marion +5 more
Jezero crater has been selected as the landing site for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, because it contains a paleolake with two fan-deltas, inlet and outlet valleys. Using the data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), we conducted a quantitative geomorphological study of the …
Refining the age, emplacement and alteration scenarios of the olivine-rich unit in the Nili Fossae region, Mars
Mangold, N.; Quantin-Nataf, C.; Millot, C. +8 more
The Nili Fossae region of Mars exhibits from remote sensing spectral data the largest exposures of olivine-rich materials on the planet. However, it is not clearly constrained how and when these terrains formed. Some of the proposed scenarios favor a mode of formation closely related to Isidis impact basin: either under intense effusive volcanism …
Mars' Ionopause: A Matter of Pressures
Holmstrom, Mats; Sánchez-Cano, Beatriz; Mayyasi, Majd +8 more
This study assesses under what circumstances the Martian ionopause is formed on the dayside, both in regions where there are strong crustal magnetic fields and areas where these fields are small (<30 nT). Multiple data sets from three MAVEN dayside deep dip campaigns are utilized between periapsis and 600-1,000 km, as well as solar wind observa…
OpenMARS: A global record of martian weather from 1999 to 2015
Holmes, James A.; Lewis, Stephen R.; Patel, Manish R.
The Open access to Mars Assimilated Remote Soundings (OpenMARS) dataset is a reanalysis product combining past spacecraft observations with a Mars Global Circulation Model (GCM). The OpenMARS product is a global surface/atmosphere reference database of surface and atmospheric properties for almost nine Mars years that can be used by Mars scientist…
Crust stratigraphy and heterogeneities of the first kilometers at the dichotomy boundary in western Elysium Planitia and implications for InSight lander
Pan, Lu; Quantin-Nataf, Cathy; Tauzin, Benoit +9 more
InSight landed on Mars on November 26, 2018, in western Elysium Planitia. The Mars crust beneath the lander is subject to complex geologic history next to the great topographic and crustal dichotomy of Mars. Understanding this part of the Martian crust in the subsurface would aid future investigations of the internal structure of the planet based …
Synergistic Ground and Orbital Observations of Iron Oxides on Mt. Sharp and Vera Rubin Ridge
Arvidson, R. E.; Morris, R. V.; Pinet, P. +12 more
Visible/short-wave infrared spectral data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) show absorptions attributed to hematite at Vera Rubin ridge (VRR), a topographic feature on northwest Mt. Sharp. The goals of this study are to determine why absorptions caused by ferric iron are strongly visible from orbit at VRR and to…