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Published October 2015 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Reconstructing the transport history of pebbles on Mars

Abstract

The discovery of remarkably rounded pebbles by the rover Curiosity, within an exhumed alluvial fan complex in Gale Crater, presents some of the most compelling evidence yet for sustained fluvial activity on Mars. While rounding is known to result from abrasion by inter-particle collisions, geologic interpretations of sediment shape have been qualitative. Here we show how quantitative information on the transport distance of river pebbles can be extracted from their shape alone, using a combination of theory, laboratory experiments and terrestrial field data. We determine that the Martian basalt pebbles have been carried tens of kilometres from their source, by bed-load transport on an alluvial fan. In contrast, angular clasts strewn about the surface of the Curiosity traverse are indicative of later emplacement by rock fragmentation processes. The proposed method for decoding transport history from particle shape provides a new tool for terrestrial and planetary sedimentology.

Additional Information

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Received 22 May 2015; Accepted 14 Aug 2015; Published 13 Oct 2015. We thank Rebecca Williams and Nicolas Mangold for their help in locating the Mars conglomerates and their guidance in Curiosity's raw data; Kim Miller for providing data from Dog Canyon; and Sarolta Bodor for help in the drum experiment. Research was supported by the US National Science Foundation Luquillo Critical Zone Observatory (EAR-1331841) to D.J.J. a Korányi Fellowship to T.S.Z. Hungarian OTKA grant 104601 to G.D. and T.Z. and the NASA Astrobiology Institute and Mars Science Laboratory Mission to J.P.G. Author contributions: T.S.Z. performed all of the data analysis; G.D. led the laboratory experiment; J.P.G. developed the Martian geology; and D.J.J. supervised the research. All authors contributed to writing of the document and interpreting the results.

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Created:
August 22, 2023
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