Hydrated Minerals in the Martian Southern Highlands

Details Hydrated Minerals in the Martian Southern Highlands Hydrated Minerals in the Martian Southern Highlands

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.0304w&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #3.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.390

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Hydrated minerals including sulfates, phyllosilicates, and hydrated silica have been observed on the surface of Mars by the orbital near-infrared spectrometers OMEGA and CRISM [1,2]. Global maps from OMEGA [3,4] show that km-scale and larger exposures of these minerals are scattered widely throughout the planet's low and mid latitudes, but are relatively rare. Yet CRISM has found hundreds to thousands of Fe/Mg-phyllosilicate exposures in the highlands of Terra Tyrrhena alone [2], suggesting that smaller exposures may be much more common.
To search for such exposures, we have surveyed the browse products from all PDS-released CRISM targeted observations (as of July 2008) across a large fraction of the Southern highlands, including the Noachis, Cimmeria, and Sirenum regions. Sulfates are observed in Noachian-aged terrains in each of these regions, including as far South as -63º latitude, suggesting that sulfate formation may have occurred locally or regionally throughout a large fraction of Martian history. Some of our strongest phyllosilicate detections occur adjacent to inferred chloride-bearing deposits [5] in Terra Sirenum. Also in Sirenum, the D 100 km Columbus crater contains light-toned, hydrated sulfate-bearing layers overlying materials that contain both a kaolin group clay and Fe/Mg-smectite clay, in different locations. However, phyllosilicates do not appear predominantly associated with impact craters in the regions surveyed, in contrast with Terra Tyrrhena [2]. We are currently searching for additional hydrated mineral exposures using CRISM multispectral data, providing further detail on their global distribution and identifying local areas of interest for future focused studies.
[1] Bibring, J.-P. et al. (2005) Science 307, 1576-1581.
[2] Mustard, J. F. et al. (2008) Nature 454, 305-309.
[3] Bibring, J.-P. et al. (2006) Science 312, 400-404.
[4] Poulet, F. et al. (2007) Mars 7, Abs. #3170.
[5] Osterloo M. M. et al. (2008) Science 319, 1651-1654.

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