Published June 2024 | Published
Journal Article Open

The Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) X-ray Diffractometer on the MSL Curiosity Rover: A Decade of Mineralogy from Gale Crater, Mars

  • 1. ROR icon Ames Research Center
  • 2. ROR icon Johnson Space Center
  • 3. ROR icon Planetary Science Institute
  • 4. ROR icon Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
  • 5. ROR icon Carnegie Institution for Science
  • 6. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab
  • 7. ROR icon University of Arizona
  • 8. ROR icon Lunar and Planetary Institute
  • 9. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 10. ROR icon University of Calgary
  • 11. ROR icon University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • 12. Genetech
  • 13. ROR icon Institut des Matériaux, de Microélectronique et des Nanosciences de Provence
  • 14. ROR icon University of Hawaii at Manoa
  • 15. ROR icon University of New Brunswick
  • 16. ROR icon University of Guelph
  • 17. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 18. ROR icon Rice University

Abstract

For more than a decade, the CheMin X-ray diffraction instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has been returning definitive and quantitative mineralogical and mineral–chemistry data from ~3.5-billion-year-old (Ga) sediments in Gale crater, Mars. To date, 40 drilled rock samples and three scooped soil samples have been analyzed during the rover's 30+ km transit. These samples document the mineralogy of over 800 m of flat-lying fluvial, lacustrine, and aeolian sedimentary rocks that comprise the lower strata of the central mound of Gale crater (Aeolis Mons, informally known as Mt. Sharp) and the surrounding plains (Aeolis Palus, informally known as the Bradbury Rise). The principal mineralogy of the sedimentary rocks is of basaltic composition, with evidence of post-depositional diagenetic overprinting. The rocks in many cases preserve much of their primary mineralogy and sedimentary features, suggesting that they were never strongly heated or deformed. Using aeolian soil composition as a proxy for the composition of the deposited and lithified sediment, it appears that, in many cases, the diagenetic changes observed are principally isochemical. Exceptions to this trend include secondary nodules, calcium sulfate veining, and rare Si-rich alteration halos. A surprising and yet poorly understood observation is that nearly all of the ~3.5 Ga sedimentary rocks analyzed to date contain 15–70 wt.% of X-ray amorphous material. Overall, this >800 m section of sedimentary rock explored in lower Mt. Sharp documents a perennial shallow lake environment grading upward into alternating lacustrine/fluvial and aeolian environments, many of which would have been habitable to microbial life.

Copyright and License

© 2024 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/).

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge the support of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineering and management teams and the MSL science team members who participated in tactical and strategic operations, without whom the data presented here could not have been collected.

Funding

Some 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 (NASA). All phases of CheMin development, deployment and surface operations were supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate under grant #MSL04-0014-0006.

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, D.B., V.T., T.B., E.R., D.V., S.C., P.S., R.M., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison), A.Y., R.D., R.H., A.T., D.M., G.D., C.A., N.C., T.P., D.D.M., P.C., B.L., B.T., E.H., S.S., R.W., M.T., J.M., A.P., M.G., P.D., J.B., L.T., A.M., C.O.-C., B.S., J.M.M., A.F., J.G., K.S., S.M. (Soren Madsen) and A.V.; methodology, D.B., V.T., T.B., E.R., D.V., S.C., P.S., R.M., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison), A.Y., R.D., R.H., A.T., D.M., G.D., C.A., N.C., T.P., D.D.M., P.C., B.L., B.T., E.H., S.S., R.W., M.T., J.M., A.P., M.G., P.D., J.B., L.T., A.M., C.O.-C., B.S., J.M.M., A.F., J.G., K.S., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison) and A.V.; investigation, D.B., V.T., T.B., E.R., D.V., S.C., P.S., R.M., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison), A.Y., R.D., R.H., A.T., D.M., G.D., C.A., N.C., T.P., D.D.M., P.C., B.L., B.T., E.H., S.S., R.W., M.T., J.M., A.P., M.G., P.D., J.B., L.T., A.M., C.O.-C., B.S., J.M.M., A.F., J.G., K.S., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison), A.V. and R.G.; formal analysis, D.B., V.T., T.B., E.R., D.V., S.C., P.S., R.M., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison), A.Y., R.D., R.H., A.T., D.M., G.D., C.A., N.C., T.P., D.D.M., P.C., B.L., B.T., E.H., S.S., R.W., M.T., J.M., A.P., M.G., P.D., J.B., L.T., A.M., C.O.-C., B.S., J.M.M., A.F., J.G., K.S., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison) and A.V.; investigation, D.B., M.T., T.B., E.R., D.V., S.C., P.S., R.M., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison), A.Y., R.D., R.H., A.T., D.M., G.D., C.A., N.C., T.P., D.D.M., P.C., B.L., B.T., E.H., S.S., R.W., M.T., J.M., A.P., M.G., P.D., J.B., L.T., A.M., C.O.-C., B.S., J.M.M., A.F., J.G., K.S., S.M. (Shaunna Morrison) and A.V.; data curation, D.B., T.B. and E.R.; writing—original draft preparation, D.B.; writing—review and editing, D.B. and V.T.; visualization, D.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data Availability

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. These data can be found here: https://pds.nasa.gov, accessed on 23 July 2021. Additional contextual information can be found in the publicly available Gale crater Mineralogy and Geochemistry Sample Database found here: https://doi.org/10.48484/JN48-YW52 (accessed on 7 May 2024).

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Created:
January 31, 2025
Modified:
January 31, 2025