Clay mineral diversity and abundance in sedimentary rocks of Gale crater, Mars

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Clay minerals found in Gale crater, Mars, record surficial chemical weathering and changing conditions in an ancient lake.

Abstract

Clay minerals provide indicators of the evolution of aqueous conditions and possible habitats for life on ancient Mars. Analyses by the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity show that ~3.5–billion year (Ga) fluvio-lacustrine mudstones in Gale crater contain up to ~28 weight % (wt %) clay minerals. We demonstrate that the species of clay minerals deduced from x-ray diffraction and evolved gas analysis show a strong paleoenvironmental dependency. While perennial lake mudstones are characterized by Fe-saponite, we find that stratigraphic intervals associated with episodic lake drying contain Al-rich, Fe ³⁺-bearing dioctahedral smectite, with minor (3 wt %) quantities of ferripyrophyllite, interpreted as wind-blown detritus, found in candidate aeolian deposits. Our results suggest that dioctahedral smectite formed via near-surface chemical weathering driven by fluctuations in lake level and atmospheric infiltration, a process leading to the redistribution of nutrients and potentially influencing the cycling of gases that help regulate climate.

Related collections

Most cited references 40

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

A habitable fluvio-lacustrine environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale crater, Mars.

J P Grotzinger, D Y Sumner, L. C. Kah … (2014)

The Curiosity rover discovered fine-grained sedimentary rocks, which are inferred to represent an ancient lake and preserve evidence of an environment that would have been suited to support a martian biosphere founded on chemolithoautotrophy. This aqueous environment was characterized by neutral pH, low salinity, and variable redox states of both iron and sulfur species. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus were measured directly as key biogenic elements; by inference, phosphorus is assumed to have been available. The environment probably had a minimum duration of hundreds to tens of thousands of years. These results highlight the biological viability of fluvial-lacustrine environments in the post-Noachian history of Mars.

0 comments Cited 302 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Subsurface water and clay mineral formation during the early history of Mars.

Bethany L. Ehlmann, John Mustard, Scott Murchie … (2011)

Clay minerals, recently discovered to be widespread in Mars's Noachian terrains, indicate long-duration interaction between water and rock over 3.7 billion years ago. Analysis of how they formed should indicate what environmental conditions prevailed on early Mars. If clays formed near the surface by weathering, as is common on Earth, their presence would indicate past surface conditions warmer and wetter than at present. However, available data instead indicate substantial Martian clay formation by hydrothermal groundwater circulation and a Noachian rock record dominated by evidence of subsurface waters. Cold, arid conditions with only transient surface water may have characterized Mars's surface for over 4 billion years, since the early-Noachian period, and the longest-duration aqueous, potentially habitable environments may have been in the subsurface.

0 comments Cited 237 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Deposition, exhumation, and paleoclimate of an ancient lake deposit, Gale crater, Mars

J P Grotzinger, S. Gupta, M C Malin … (2015)

The landforms of northern Gale crater on Mars expose thick sequences of sedimentary rocks. Based on images obtained by the Curiosity rover, we interpret these outcrops as evidence for past fluvial, deltaic, and lacustrine environments. Degradation of the crater wall and rim probably supplied these sediments, which advanced inward from the wall, infilling both the crater and an internal lake basin to a thickness of at least 75 meters. This intracrater lake system probably existed intermittently for thousands to millions of years, implying a relatively wet climate that supplied moisture to the crater rim and transported sediment via streams into the lake basin. The deposits in Gale crater were then exhumed, probably by wind-driven erosion, creating Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp).

0 comments Cited 227 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Adv

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Adv

Journal ID (publisher-id): SciAdv

Journal ID (hwp): advances

Title: Science Advances

Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science

ISSN (Electronic): 2375-2548

Publication date Collection: June 2018

Publication date (Electronic): 06 June 2018

Volume: 4

Issue: 6

Electronic Location Identifier: eaar3330

Affiliations

[1 ]NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.

[2 ]NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.

[3 ]Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.

[4 ]Chesapeake Energy, Oklahoma City, OK 73154, USA.

[5 ]Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX 77058, USA.

[6 ]Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.

[7 ]Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.

[8 ]Division of Geologic and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.

[9 ]Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.

[10 ]Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA.

[11 ]Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Department, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.

[12 ]Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique, UMR6112, CNRS, Université Nantes, Université Angers, Nantes, France.

[13 ]NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.

[14 ]Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA.

Author notes

[* ]Corresponding author. Email: thomas.f.bristow@ 123456nasa.gov (T.F.B.); elizabeth.b.rampe@ 123456nasa.gov (E.B.R.)

Author information

Thomas F. Bristow http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6725-0555

Elizabeth B. Rampe http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6999-0028

Cherie N. Achilles http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9185-6768

David F. Blake http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0834-4487

Patricia Craig http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4080-4997

Joy A. Crisp http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3202-4416

David J. Des Marais http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6827-5831

Robert T. Downs http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8380-7728

Ralf Gellert http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7928-834X

John P. Grotzinger http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9324-1257

Sanjeev Gupta http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6415-1332

Paul R. Mahaffy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1896-1726

Amy C. McAdam http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9120-2991

Doug W. Ming http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0567-8876

Shaunna M. Morrison http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1712-8057

Allan H. Treiman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8073-2839

Ashwin R. Vasavada http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2665-286X

Article

Publisher ID: aar3330

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar3330

PMC ID: 5990309

PubMed ID: 29881776

SO-VID: d32a340d-7197-486b-837c-028174316485

Copyright © Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 26 October 2017

Date accepted : 24 April 2018

Funding

Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011690, UK Space Agency;

Award ID: ST/J005169/1 and ST/N000579/1

Custom metadata

Copyeditor Sef Rio

Data availability:

Clay mineral diversity and abundance in sedimentary rocks of Gale crater, Mars

Read this article at

Abstract

Abstract

Related collections

Airburst and Crater Research

Most cited references 40

A habitable fluvio-lacustrine environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale crater, Mars.

Subsurface water and clay mineral formation during the early history of Mars.

Deposition, exhumation, and paleoclimate of an ancient lake deposit, Gale crater, Mars

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Author information

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Cited by 68

Most referenced authors 1,738