Gale Crater’s Bathurst Inlet and Rocknest_3 Compositions
نویسندگان
چکیده
Introduction: After about 400 m of MSL Curiosity rover travel, at Bathurst Inlet, sol 54, two APXS analyses were made. On sol 102 Rocknest_3 at the Rocknest site was also analysed by APXS. Bathurst is part of an in-situ, eroded surface (Fig. 1a). The association of Rocknest_3 (Fig. 1b) with surrounding, similar rocks at the Rocknest site strongly suggests that it has a local origin as well. Both samples show some of the challenges of martian geology in that they are both partially dust-covered, fine grained, non vesicular and contain some traces of layering which could be consistent with igneous [1], volcaniclastic [2], impact or sedimentary origins. Here we compare the Curiosity Lander’s APXS whole rock compositions of these rocks to known martian compositions e.g. [1,3] in order to help understand their origin. The APXS analyses and their uncertainties are discussed in [4].
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Mineralogy and fluvial history of the watersheds of Gale, Knobel, and Sharp craters: A regional context for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity's exploration
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