Petrological Traverse of the Olivine Cumulate Séítah Formation at Jezero Crater, Mars: A Perspective From SuperCam Onboard Perseverance
Name
JGR Planets - 2023 - Beyssac - Petrological Traverse of the Olivine Cumulate S tah Formation at Jezero Crater Mars A.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
3.81 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5415e71f524b2aa7136297e5b223c4ef
Date Issued
May 30, 2023
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Beyssac, O., Forni, O., Cousin, A.,
Udry, A., Kah, L. C., Mandon, L.,
et al. (2023). Petrological traverse of
the olivine cumulate Séítah formation
at Jezero crater, Mars: A perspective
from SuperCam onboard Perseverance.
Journal of Geophysical Research:
Planets, 128, e2022JE007638.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Séítah is the stratigraphically lowest formation visited by Perseverance in the Jezero crater floor. We present the data obtained by SuperCam: texture by imagery, chemistry by Laser‐Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, and mineralogy by Supercam Visible and Infrared reflectance and Raman spectroscopy. The Séítah formation consists of igneous, weakly altered rocks dominated by millimeter‐sized grains of olivine with the presence of low‐Ca and high‐Ca pyroxenes, and other primary minerals (e.g., plagioclase, Cr‐Fe‐Ti oxides, phosphates). Along a ∼140 m long section in Séítah, SuperCam analyses showed evidence of geochemical and mineralogical variations, from the contact with the overlying Máaz formation, going deeper in the formation. Bulk rock and olivine Mg#, grain size, olivine content increase gradually further from the contact. Along the section, olivine Mg# is not in equilibrium with the bulk rock Mg#, indicating local olivine accumulation. These observations are consistent with Séítah being the deep ultramafic member of a cumulate series derived from the fractional crystallization and slow cooling of the parent magma at depth. Possible magmatic processes and exhumation mechanisms of Séítah are discussed. Séítah rocks show some affinity with some rocks at Gusev crater, and with some Martian meteorites suggesting that such rocks are not rare on the surface of Mars. Séítah is part of the Nili Fossae regional olivine‐carbonate unit observed from orbit. Future exploration of Perseverance on the rim and outside of the crater will help determine if the observations from the crater floor can be extrapolated to the whole unit or if this unit is composed of distinct sub‐units with various origins.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
10.1029/2022je007638
