Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.p22b0550b&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #P22B-0550
Mathematics
Logic
5455 Origin And Evolution, 5464 Remote Sensing, 6225 Mars
Scientific paper
The presence or absence of evaporite basins on Mars has important implications for the role that liquid water has played in shaping the planet's climatic history. Orbital investigations of surface mineralogy are crucial to this exploration effort. With the exception of a few specular hematite sites, the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) now orbiting Mars has yet to find significant mineralogical evidence of hydrously altered minerals. This is may reflect the coarse spatial resolution of TES (3km/pixel), a limitation that will be addressed later this year by the Thermal Emission Imaging Spectrometer (THEMIS), which will map much of the planet at an improved spatial resolution of 100 meters/pixel. To better understand the limitations of TES and THEMIS in detecting evaporite minerals, Moersch and Farmer (2000) have conducted a spectral study of the Badwater Basin, Death Valley, CA. Thresholds for detecting sulfates and carbonates were examined using high resolution MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) data, degraded to TES and THEMIS spatial resolutions. To assess the validity of this spectrally based approach we subsequently performed a quantitative ground truth study of surface mineralogy in the Badwater Basin. In this report we review the results of our analysis based on thin section petrography, X-ray diffraction, electron microprobe and laboratory thermal emission spectrometer analysis. Our results indicate that the interpretation of spectral data in the Badwater Basin is confounded by a variety of factors, including overlaps of the spectral absorption features of different minerals, especially within natural mixtures of sulfates and silicates. X-ray diffraction data and thin section analysis confirm that the samples indeed contain complex mixtures of evaporites and silicate minerals. Comparisons of laboratory and MASTER spectra with mineralogic abundances based on point counting of thin sections, indicate that the detection limits for evaporite minerals is much higher than expected. In addition, in complex mixtures with silicates, evaporites cannot be confidently identified by simple visual comparisons of spectra. Instead, a quantitative deconvolution of sample spectra (at TES and MASTER spectral resolutions) will be performed using library spectra we assembled for common evaporite and silicate minerals. This approach will result in an improved comparison to thin section analysis and a more refined estimate for the detection limit of evaporites based on infrared remote sensing data. Together these data provide a basis for assessing the spectrally based predictions of Moersch and Farmer (2000) and will lay the groundwork for accurate identification of these minerals on Mars.
Baldridge Alice M.
Farmer Doyne J.
Moersch Jeffery E.
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