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Published April 8, 2009 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Testing evidence of recent hydration state change in sulfates on Mars

Abstract

The East Candor Interior Layered Deposit (ILD) has signatures of mono‐ and polyhydrated sulfate in alternating layers that give insight into the processes which formed these layered deposits and on the environmental conditions acting on them since then. We use orbital data to explore multiple hypotheses for how these deposits formed: (1) sulfate‐bearing ILDs experience hydration changes on seasonal to a few years timescales under current Mars environmental conditions; (2) the deposits experience hydration under recent Mars conditions but require the wetter climate of high obliquity; and (3) the kieserite could be an original or diagenetic part of a complex evaporite mineral assemblage. Modeled climatology shows recent Mars environmental conditions might pass between multiple sulfate fields. However, comparison of Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activité (OMEGA) and Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer (CRISM) observations of the same ILD do not show changes in hydration over 2 Mars years. Low temperatures might slow the kinetics of that transition; it is likely that more clement conditions during periods of high obliquity are needed to overcome mineral metastability and hydrate kieserite‐bearing deposits. We find the alternate model, that the deposit is a cyclic evaporite sequence of mono‐ and polyhydrated sulfates, also plausible but with an unexplained dearth of Fe sulfates.

Additional Information

© 2009 American Geophysical Union. Received 1 August 2008; accepted 13 January 2009; published 8 April 2009. We applaud the CRISM and OMEGA science and engineering teams for their dedication and hard work. We are grateful for valuable conversations with Tim Lowenstein. We would also like to thank Bethany Ehlmann, Alian Wang, and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments.

Attached Files

Published - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet.pdf

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_1.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_2.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_3.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_4.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_5.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_6.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_7.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_8.tiff

Supplemental Material - Roach2009p1677J_Geophys_Res-Planet_fig_9.tiff

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Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023