Petrology on Mars

By H. McSween. 2015

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Abstract Petrologic investigations of martian rocks have been accomplished by mineralogical, geochemical, and textural analyses from Mars rovers (with geologic context provided by orbiters), and by laboratory analyses of martian meteorites. Igneous rocks are primarily lavas and volcaniclastic rocks of basaltic composition, and ultramafic cumulates; alkaline rocks are common in ancient terranes and tholeiitic rocks occur in younger terranes, suggesting global magmatic evolution. Relatively uncommon feldspathic rocks represent the ultimate fractionation products, and granitic rocks are unknown. Sedimentary rocks are of both clastic (mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate, all containing significant igneous detritus) and chemical (evaporitic sulfate and less common carbonate) origin. High-silica sediments formed by hydrothermal activity. Sediments on Mars formed from different protoliths and were weathered under different environmental conditions from terrestrial sediments. Metamorphic rocks have only been inferred from orbital remote-sensing measurements. Metabasalt and serpentinite have mineral assemblages consistent with those predicted from low-pressure phase equilibria and likely formed in geothermal systems. Shock effects are common in martian meteorites, and impact breccias are probably widespread in the planet’s crustal rocks. The martian rock cycle during early periods was similar in many respects to that of Earth. However, without plate tectonics Mars did not experience the thermal metamorphism and flux melting associated with subduction, nor deposition in subsided basins and rapid erosion resulting from tectonic uplift. The rock cycle during more recent time has been truncated by desiccation of the planet’s surface and a lower geothermal gradient in its interior. The petrology of Mars is intriguingly different from Earth, but the tried-and-true methods of petrography and geochemistry are clearly translatable to another world.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/23ff13a429020cf5c3d27432fde482a2eca68485

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Citations in the corpus

The composition of Mars (2019, background): “01; Hui et al., 2011) of shergottites indicate the presence of at least two distinct sources in the Martian mantle, whose origin remains unconstrained (e.g., Symes et al., 2008; Brandon et al., 2012; McSween, 2015). Furthermore, radiogenic isotope systematics of nakhlites and chassignites indicate a”
Mars 2020 Mission Overview (2020, background): “These rocks, launched by impact onto earth-crossing trajectories, originate from a small number of martian sites, probably less than ten (Nyquist et al. 2001; McSween 2015).”
What Martian Meteorites Reveal About the Interior and Surface of Mars (2020, background): “These mantle source endmembers also have differences in redox conditions (oxygen fugacity, ƒO2), resulting in correlations between calculated primary ƒO2 in the shergottites, ITE abundances, and radiogenic isotope compositions (Figures 10 and 11) (e.g., Borg et al., 2003, 2016, 2002; Brandon et al.,”