An olivine cumulate outcrop on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars

Creators: Liu, Y.; Tice, M. M.; Schmidt, M. E.; Treiman, A. H.; Kizovski, T. V.; Hurowitz, J. A.; Allwood, A. C.; Henneke, J.; Pedersen, D. A. K.; VanBommel, S. J.; Jones, M. W. M.; Knight, A. L.; Orenstein, B. J.; Clark, B. C.; Elam, W. T.; Heirwegh, C. M.; Barber, T.; Beegle, L. W.; Benzerara, K.; Bernard, S.; Beyssac, O.; Bosak, T.; Brown, A. J.; Cardarelli, E. L.; Catling, D. C.; Christian, J. R.; Cloutis, E. A.; Cohen, B. A.; Davidoff, S.; Fairén, A. G.; Farley, K. A.; Flannery, D. T.; Galvin, A.; Grotzinger, J. P.; Gupta, S.; Hall, J.; Herd, C. D. K.; Hickman-Lewis, K.; Hodyss, R. P.; Horgan, B. H. N.; Johnson, J. R.; Jørgensen, J. L.; Kah, L. C.; Maki, J. N.; Mandon, L.; Mangold, N.; McCubbin, F. M.; McLennan, S. M.; Moore, K.; Nachon, M.; Nemere, P.; Nothdurft, L. D.; Núñez, J. I.; O'Neil, L.; Quantin-Nataf, C. M.; Sautter, V.; Shuster, D. L.; Siebach, K. L.; Simon, J. I.; Sinclair, K. P.; Stack, K. M.; Steele, A.; Tarnas, J. D.; Tosca, N. J.; Uckert, K.; Udry, A.; Wade, L. A.; Weiss, B. P.; Wiens, R. C.; Williford, K. H.; Zorzano, M.-P.

Abstract

The geological units on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars, are part of a wider regional stratigraphy of olivine-rich rocks, which extends well beyond the crater. We investigated the petrology of olivine and carbonate-bearing rocks of the Séítah formation in the floor of Jezero. Using multispectral images and x-ray fluorescence data, acquired by the Perseverance rover, we performed a petrographic analysis of the Bastide and Brac outcrops within this unit. We found that these outcrops are composed of igneous rock, moderately altered by aqueous fluid. The igneous rocks are mainly made of coarse-grained olivine, similar to some martian meteorites. We interpret them as an olivine cumulate, formed by settling and enrichment of olivine through multistage cooling of a thick magma body.

Additional Information

We are grateful to the Mars 2020 team members who participated in tactical and strategic science operations. Detailed comments by K. Edgett are greatly appreciated. Y.L. thanks L. P. Keszthelyi for the discussion about Earth and Mars lava flows; N. Williams for providing the base maps used in Fig. 1, A and C; and J. Bell for providing the image used in Fig. 1D. The work described in this paper was partially carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a prime contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Y.L., M.M.T., A.C.A., J.A.H., C.M.H., S.D., R.P.H., J.H., D.A.K.P., J.L.J., K.A.F., K.M.S., J.D.T., B.C.C., E.L.C., K.M., L.W.B., L.A.W., J.P.G., A.H.T., B.H.N.H., J.R.J., W.T.E., S.M.M., A.G., R.C.W., and K.U. were supported by NASA grant 80NM0018D0004 through JPL. J.R.J. was also supported by ASU subcontract 15-707. R.C.W. was also supported by NASA grant NNH13ZDA018O for Supercam to LANL. D.T.F. was supported by Australian Research Council grant DE210100205. E.A.C. was supported by Canadian Space Agency grant 19PACOI0 and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant RGPIN-2021-02995. C.D.K.H., T.V.K., and M.E.S. were supported by Canadian Space Agency M2020 Participating Scientist grants. A.U., S.J.V., B.A.C., M.N., D.L.S., J.I.S., K.L.S., T.Bo., and B.P.W. were supported by NASA Mars 2020 Participating Scientist grants. The work of K.B., S.B., O.B., L.M., N.M., C.M.Q.-N., and V.S. on Mars 2020 was supported by CNES. K.H.-L. was supported by a UK Space Agency Aurora Research Fellowship. T.Bo. was supported by the Simons Foundation Collaboration on the Origins of Life. S.G. was supported by the UK Space Agency and the Royal Society (grant SRF\R1\21000106). A.G.F. was supported by the European Research Council CoG #818602.

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Resource type: Journal Article
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Published in: Science, 377(6614), 1513-1519, ISSN: 0036-8075.