Other
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.3401p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #34.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1014
Other
Scientific paper
Data acquired by the OMEGA and CRISM spectrometers onboard Mars Express and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have confirmed that the surface of the ancient, Noachian-aged southern highlands of Mars is mostly unaltered, preserving old crustal material but also revealing thousands of small outcrops of various hydrated minerals, mostly phyllosilicates. These altered minerals record an early era during which Mars likely harboured environmental conditions that sustained surface liquid water. By contrast, the younger northern hemisphere lowlands are covered by material over hundreds of meters thick, likely volcanic and detrital in origin, and overlying the ancient crust whose composition is nearly unknown. An efficient way to access this buried crust is to study material ejected by impactors large enough to have penetrated the thick cover, in craters tens of kilometres in diameter. Using CRISM, OMEGA and imaging instruments, we studied over ninety northern plain craters and discovered at least nine sites exhibiting outcrops of various hydrated minerals. These minerals are found in central peaks, rims and ejecta, and are dominated by prehnite, chlorites and iron/magnesium/aluminium rich smectites. Craters with occurrences of hydrated minerals are found at wide ranges of latitude and longitude, and have diameter larger than fifteen kilometres. Phyllosilicates and unaltered olivine outcrops deposits are found closely juxtaposed, randomly within the crater floors. What's more, the hydrated metamorphic mineral prehnite is found in several craters both in central uplifts and crater ejecta. This leads us to favour an excavation scenario rather than an impact hydrothermal one. The phyllosilicates likely record alteration process that affected the northern crust prior to its being covered by kilometers-thick volcanic and detrital deposits. The similarities between their composition and those of the hydrated minerals in the southern highlands craters are an important indication that the Martian crust was altered on a global scale during the Noachian period.
Bibring J.
Carter Jennifer
Murchie Scott
Poulet François
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