Search for Aqueous Minerals in Parana Valles, Mars

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Scientific paper

Search for Aqueous Minerals in Parana Valles, Mars
S. Talib, J.B. Dalton and J.M. Moore
We have performed a compositional analysis of surface deposits in Parana Valles using a combination of Mars Observer Laser Altimeter (MOLA), Mars Observer Camera (MOC), Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) and Thermal Emission Imaging Subsystem (THEMIS) observations. Parana Valles lies within a well-defined basin in the southern highlands and contains a well-developed watershed drainage network (Barnhart et al., 2007). The strong evidence of hydrologic activity suggests that aqueously-derived minerals may be sufficiently abundant to be detected through orbital remote sensing.
We examined MOLA observations to determine locations of smaller basins within Parana, where ponding and sedimentation may have occurred. Mosaics of MOC images were then examined to identify albedo differences which could indicate mineral deposits. THEMIS night-time thermal infrared mosaics were examined to identify regions of high thermal inertia, which may be swept clear of surface dust. Finally, image cubes from TES were compiled. The TES data were culled following the method of Stockstill et al. (2005) to eliminate orbital tracks of high atmospheric dust or water ice cloud composition. A Dust Cover Index (Ruff and Christensen 2002) was computed for TES data and used to reject observations obscured by high surface dust.
Once the TES image cube had been reduced, regions of interest were defined based on the areas determined likely to contain minerals of aqueous origin based on the MOLA, MOC, and THEMIS observations. A linear spectral mixture model was then applied to these spectra using the Arizona State University Thermal Emission Spectral Library (Christensen et al., 2000) to estimate mineral abundances. We found that the surface mineralogy of Parana Valles is dominated by mixtures of phyllosilicates, feldspars, olivines and pyroxenes. This is consistent with chemically-weathered basaltic material.

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