A surprising mineral named tridymite was found in a sample of rock in Gale Crater on Mars in 2016. Tridymite is often linked with silicic volcanism, known on Earth but not anticipated to exist on the Red Planet. Therefore, the discovery caught the Mars study community off guard.
A recent discovery reveals how NASA's Curiosity rover discovered the unusual mineral in 2016. To solve the puzzle, planetary scientists from Rice University, NASA's Johnson Space Center, and the California Institute of Technology worked together.
This artist's concept depicts the rover Curiosity, of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, as it uses its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to investigate the composition of a rock surface. ChemCam fires laser pulses at a target and views the resulting spark with a telescope and spectrometers to identify chemical elements. The laser is actually in an invisible infrared wavelength, but is shown here as visible red light for purposes of illustration. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, and designed and built Curiosity.
Planetary Scientists Solve Mysterious Rare Mineral That NASA Curiosity Rover Discovered on Mars
The study, published online in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, supported a 2016 study's conclusion that the tridymite was probably formed under conditions consistent with a "silicic volcanism scenario."
Thermodynamical models were also used in the current study to better explain how tridymite evolved as a "reasonable product" of the same magmatic processes that generated other rocks in the Gale Crater.
"There's ample evidence of basaltic volcanic eruptions on Mars, but this is a more evolved chemistry," Study co-author Kirsten Siebach said in a press release. "This work suggests Mars may have a more complex and intriguing volcanic history than we would have imagined before Curiosity."
UPI wrote that Gale Crater, where the sample was collected, was chosen as the rover's landing location due to the possibility that it had held liquid water.
A bigger rock sample of lake-formed mudstone that included feldspar, cristobalite, opaline silica, and tridymite was found.
One of the most unexpected discoveries the Curiosity rover has made in its ten years of exploration of Mars, according to Siebach, was the finding of tridymite in mudstone in Gale Crater.
Tridymite is often linked with quartz-forming, explosive, advanced volcanic systems on Earth. Yet, the researchers discovered such material on Mars, where most volcanoes are "primitive."
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Volcanic Eruption Spewed Tridymite on Red Planet
Siebach and colleagues reevaluated the data of each tridymite discovery found on Earth, Devdiscourse mentioned. They also reexamined sedimentary data from the Gale Crater on Mars. They checked the volcanic elements from models of Mars volcanism.
The scientists then developed a new theory consistent with all the evidence. Martian magma rested in a chamber under a volcano for longer than usual, partially cooling through a process known as fractional crystallization until additional silicon was available. The volcano erupted violently, spewing tridymite, a material of excess silicon, into the Gale Crater lake and the nearby rivers.
The researchers claimed that water assisted in the ash's breakdown through chemical weathering and sorting of the minerals created by weathering. Tridymite would have been concentrated in the scenario, making minerals comparable with those found by a NASA mission in 2016.
There is a ton of proof of basaltic volcanic eruptions on Mars, according to Siebach. But this chemistry has evolved, he said. In Siebach's opinion, the new study shows that Mars' volcanic past may be more intricate and fascinating than we had previously thought.
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