Paleo‐Scours Within the Layered Sulfate‐Bearing Unit at Gale Crater, Mars: Evidence for Intense Wind Erosion

Creators: Roberts, Amelie L.¹; Gupta, Sanjeev¹; Banham, Steven G.¹; Cowart, Aster²; Edgar, Lauren A.; Rapin, William³; Dietrich, William E.⁴; Davis, Joel M.¹; Kite, Edwin S.⁵; Caravaca, Gwénaël³; Mondro, Claire A.⁶; Gasda, Patrick J.⁷; Johnson, Jeffrey R.⁸; Le Mouélic, Stéphane⁹; Fey, Deirdra M.¹⁰; Bryk, Alexander B.⁴; Paar, Gerhard¹¹; Harris, Emma R. A.^{1, 12}; Fraeman, Abigail¹³; Vasavada, Ashwin R.¹³

1. Imperial College London
2. Planetary Science Institute
3. Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology
4. University of California, Berkeley
5. University of Chicago
6. California Institute of Technology
7. Los Alamos National Laboratory
8. Johns Hopkins University
9. Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique de Nantes
10. Malin Space Science Systems (United States)
11. Joanneum Research
12. Natural History Museum
13. Jet Propulsion Lab

Abstract

The surface of modern Mars is largely shaped by wind, but the influence of past wind activity is less well constrained. Sedimentary rocks exposed in the lower foothills of Aeolis Mons, the central mound within Gale crater, record a transition from predominantly lacustrine deposition in the Murray formation to aeolian deposition in the Mirador formation. Here, we report a series of enigmatic decameter-wide, concave-up scour-and-fill structures within the Mirador formation and discuss their formation mechanisms. Using panoramic images of stratigraphy exposed in cliff faces acquired by the Curiosity rover, we map the extent, distribution and orientation of the scour-and-fill structures and document the sedimentary facies within and surrounding these structures. The scours are grouped into two classes: (A) scours with a simple, symmetric morphology and light-toned, draping infill; and (B) scours with lateral pinching and dark-toned infill. We find that the scour-enclosing environment is composed of planar, even-in-thickness laminations with a pin-stripe pattern which we interpret as wind-ripple strata formed within an aeolian sandsheet environment. Class B contains cm-scale cross-bedding and a wing-shaped feature making this scour-and-fill structure consistent with fluvial processes. We interpret scour fill of class A as an aeolian infill due to similarities with the surrounding sandsheet strata. The broad morphologies and distribution of class A are also consistent with the geometry of blowout structures formed by localized, enhanced wind deflation. These paleo-blowout structures occur clustered within the same stratigraphic interval, which may imply that they record an interval of intensified wind activity at Gale crater.

Copyright and License

© 2025 Triad National Security, LLC. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and The Author(s). Government sponsorship acknowledged. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our gratitude to the engineering, science, and management teams of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Project, whose efforts have made this research possible. Special thanks are extended to the many MSL team members who contributed to both tactical and strategic operations during the Marker Band valley campaign. We also particularly thank the Malin Space Science Systems operations team for their dedication in acquiring extensive image data and for generating the Mastcam mosaic products that were integral to this study. Additionally, we are grateful to Dave Rubin for his valuable contributions to the discussions. This work was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), ST/W507520/1 (A. Roberts); the U.K. Space Agency, ST/Y000137/1, ST/S001506/1 (S.G. Banham); ST/X002373/1, ST/S001492/1 (S. Gupta); and ST/W002566/2 (J. Davis); and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 80NSSC22K0731 (E. Kite), 80NSSC22K0779 (J. R. Johnson). The data presented in this research are archived with the NASA Planetary Data System (pds.nasa.gov) and can be accessed through the MSL Curiosity Analyst's Notebook (https://an.rsl.wustl.edu/msl). Portions of this research were conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. Finally, we would like to thank Benjamin Cardenas and Kathryn Stack Morgan for their insightful and constructive reviews, and the editors of Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets for coordinating the reviews and overall editorial process. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Data Availability

The HiRISE mosaic used in this research is available through Calef and Parker (2016; https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/mars_msl_gale_merged_orthophoto_mosaic_25cm). Additional data from HiRISE (McEwen et al., 2007; https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JE002605) and CTX (Malin et al., 2007; https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JE002808) images can be accessed at the NASA Planetary Data System Geosciences Node (https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mro/default.htm). All Mastcam (Malin et al., 2017; https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EA000252) and MAHLI (Edgett et al., 2012; https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-012-9910-4) images referenced in this manuscript can be found at the NASA Planetary Data System Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node (https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/volumes/msl.html).

Supplemental Material

2024JE008680-sup-0001-Supporting Information SI-S01.docx : Supporting Information S1

2024JE008680-sup-0002-Data Set SI-S01.pptx : Data Set S1

Files

JGR Planets - 2025 - Roberts - Paleo‐Scours Within the Layered Sulfate‐Bearing Unit at Gale Crater Mars Evidence for.pdf

Files (48.0 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
2024je008680-sup-0002-data set si-s01.pptx md5:6d23a5bcd5fc7ea042c371768cdbcd45	29.4 MB	Download
2024je008680-sup-0001-supporting information si-s01.docx md5:afe67bfbb2c6cff71ae9f6ab8a14bf43	4.7 MB	Download
JGR Planets - 2025 - Roberts - Paleo‐Scours Within the Layered Sulfate‐Bearing Unit at Gale Crater Mars Evidence for.pdf md5:408410a2c1c94bb16f88e642ff2124fb	14.0 MB	Preview Download

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes