Diverse Lava Flow Morphologies in the Stratigraphy of the Jezero Crater Floor

Creators: Alwmark, S.^{1, 2}; Horgan, B.³; Udry, A.⁴; Bechtold, A.^{5, 6}; Fagents, S.⁷; Ravanis, E.⁷; Crumpler, L.⁸; Schmitz, N.⁹; Cloutis, E.¹⁰; Brown, A.¹¹; Flannery, D.¹²; Gasnault, O.¹³; Grotzinger, John P.¹⁴; Gupta, S.¹⁵; Kah, L.¹⁶; Kelemen, P.¹⁷; Kinch, K.²; Núñez, J.¹⁸

1. Lund University
2. University of Copenhagen
3. Purdue University West Lafayette
4. University of Nevada, Las Vegas
5. Austrian Academy of Sciences
6. University of Vienna
7. University of Hawaii at Manoa
8. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
9. German Aerospace Center
10. University of Winnipeg
11. Plancius Research, Severna Park, MD, USA
12. Queensland University of Technology
13. Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology
14. California Institute of Technology
15. Imperial College London
16. University of Tennessee at Knoxville
17. Columbia University
18. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Abstract

We present a combined geomorphologic, multispectral, and geochemical analysis of crater floor rocks in Jezero crater based on data obtained by the Mast Camera Zoom and SuperCam instruments onboard the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The combined data from this analysis together with the results of a comparative study with geologic sites on Earth allows us to interpret the origins of rocks exposed along the Artuby ridge, a ∼900 m long scarp of lower Máaz formation rocks. The ridge exposes rocks belonging to two morphologically distinct members, Artuby and Rochette, both of which have basaltic composition and are spectrally indistinguishable in our analysis. Artuby rocks consist of morphologically distinct units that alternate over the ridge, bulbous, hummocky, layers with varying thicknesses that in places appear to have flowed over underlying strata, and sub‐planar thinner laterally continuous layers with variable friability. The Rochette member has a massive appearance with pronounced pitting and sub‐horizontal partings. Our findings are most consistent with a primary igneous emplacement as lava flows, through multiple eruptions, and we propose that the thin layers result either from preferential weathering, interbedded ash/tephra layers, ʻaʻā clinker layers, or aeolian deposition. Our analyses provide essential geologic context for the Máaz formation samples that will be returned to Earth and highlight the diversity and complexity of geologic processes on Mars not visible from orbit.

Copyright and License

© 2023. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Mars 2020 science and engineering teams for their efforts in running the mission and in collecting data, and for discussion. Special thanks are extended to Mastcam-Z Payload Downlink Leads for regenerating mosaics for this contribution. Professional editorial handling by L. Montési and thorough reviews by Christopher Hamilton and one anonymous reviewer are gratefully acknowledged.

Funding

S. Alwmark was supported by an International Postdoc Grant from the Swedish Research Council (Grant 2017-06388). A. Udry was supported by a NASA Grant (80NSSC21K0330). The participation of O. Gasnault in SuperCam on Perseverance was supported by CNES. D. Flannery acknowledges funding by the Australian Research Council. K. B. Kinch was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation Grant CF19-0023. E. Cloutis acknowledges funding from the Canadian Space Agency and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. B. Horgan, J. Núñez, E. Ravanis, and S. Fagents were funded by NASA's Mars 2020 Project via a subcontract from the California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Arizona State University (subcontract 1511125).

Data Availability

The data in this publication are from the Mastcam-Z and SuperCam instruments onboard the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The SuperCam data are from LIBS and RMI. The data are available through the Planetary Data System Imaging Node (https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/portal/mars2020_mission.html), and GeoSciences Node (https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mars2020/). For Mastcam-Z data, see Bell and Maki (2021). The Mastcam-Z multispectral database from sols 0–380 was published in Rice et al. (2022b). For SuperCam data, see Wiens and Maurice (2021).

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