A Review of the Phyllosilicates in Gale Crater as Detected by the CheMin Instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity Rover

Creators: Tu, Valerie M.; Rampe, Elizabeth B.; Bristow, Thomas F.; Thorpe, Michael T.; Clark, Joanna V.; Castle, Nicholas; Fraeman, Abigail A.; Edgar, Lauren A.; McAdam, Amy; Bedford, Candice; Achilles, Cherie N.; Blake, David; Chipera, Steve J.; Craig, Patricia I.; Des Marais, David J.; Downs, Gordon W.; Downs, Robert T.; Fox, Valerie; Grotzinger, John P.; Hazen, Robert M.; Ming, Douglas W.; Morris, Richard V.; Morrison, Shaunna M.; Pavri, Betina; Eigenbrode, Jennifer; Peretyazhko, Tanya S.; Sarrazin, Philippe C.; Sutter, Brad; Treiman, Allan H.; Vaniman, David T.; Vasavada, Ashwin R.; Yen, Albert S.; Bridges, John C.

Abstract

Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, landed on Mars in August 2012 to investigate the ~3.5-billion-year-old (Ga) fluvio-lacustrine sedimentary deposits of Aeolis Mons (informally known as Mount Sharp) and the surrounding plains (Aeolis Palus) in Gale crater. After nearly nine years, Curiosity has traversed over 25 km, and the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) X-ray diffraction instrument on-board Curiosity has analyzed 30 drilled rock and three scooped soil samples to date. The principal strategic goal of the mission is to assess the habitability of Mars in its ancient past. Phyllosilicates are common in ancient Martian terrains dating to ~3.5–4 Ga and were detected from orbit in some of the lower strata of Mount Sharp. Phyllosilicates on Earth are important for harboring and preserving organics. On Mars, phyllosilicates are significant for exploration as they are hypothesized to be a marker for potential habitable environments. CheMin data demonstrate that ancient fluvio-lacustrine rocks in Gale crater contain up to ~35 wt. % phyllosilicates. Phyllosilicates are key indicators of past fluid–rock interactions, and variation in the structure and composition of phyllosilicates in Gale crater suggest changes in past aqueous environments that may have been habitable to microbial life with a variety of possible energy sources.

Additional Information

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Received: 1 June 2021 / Revised: 22 July 2021 / Accepted: 24 July 2021 / Published: 6 August 2021. The authors are grateful to the entire MSL team, instrument teams, engineers, and scientists that made the mission and studies possible. The research reviewed in this paper was funded by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project office. A.A.F. was supported by the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Participating Scientist Program. Additionally, a portion of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Author Contributions: The review paper summarizes the findings of numerous studies from the MSL team, instrument teams, and in the laboratory. All co-authors were involved with at least one of the following individual projects reviewed in this paper: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation. Conceptualization, E.B.R., T.F.B., M.T.T., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., C.N.A., D.B., S.J.C., P.I.C., D.J.D.M., V.F., J.P.G., D.W.M., R.V.M., S.M.M., J.E., T.S.P., P.C.S., B.S., A.H.T., D.T.V., A.R.V., A.S.Y., J.C.B.; methodology, E.B.R., T.F.B., M.T.T., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., C.N.A., D.B., S.J.C., P.I.C., D.J.D.M.,V.F., J.P.G., D.W.M., R.V.M., S.M.M., T.S.P., P.C.S., B.S., A.H.T., D.T.V., A.R.V., A.S.Y.; formal analysis, V.M.T., E.B.R., T.F.B., M.T.T., N.C., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., C.N.A., D.B., S.J.C., P.I.C., D.J.D.M., G.W.D., R.T.D., V.F., J.P.G., R.M.H., D.W.M., R.V.M., S.M.M., T.S.P., B.S., A.H.T., D.T.V., A.S.Y.; investigation, V.M.T., E.B.R., T.F.B., M.T.T., N.C., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., C.N.A., D.B., S.J.C., P.I.C., D.J.D.M., G.W.D., R.T.D., V.F., J.P.G., R.M.H., D.W.M., R.V.M., S.M.M., J.E., T.S.P., B.S., A.H.T., D.T.V., A.R.V., A.S.Y., J.C.B.; data curation, E.B.R., T.F.B., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., C.N.A., V.F., J.P.G., D.T.V., A.S.Y.; writing—original draft preparation, V.M.T., E.B.R., T.F.B., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., V.F.; writing—review and editing, V.M.T., E.B.R., T.F.B., M.T.T., J.V.C., A.A.F., L.A.E., A.M., C.B., V.F., R.M.H., B.P., J.E., D.T.V., A.R.V., J.C.B.; visualization, V.M.T., J.V.C., V.F., L.A.E. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript in the decision to publish the results. Data Availability Statement: Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: [https://pds.nasa.gov], accessed on 23 July 2021. Additional contextual information can be found in the publically available CheMin Database found here: [https://odr.io/chemin], accessed on 23 July 2021.

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