Cited by 101Planetary Science and ExplorationAstro and Planetary ScienceGeochemistry and Elemental Analysis

Alteration history of Séítah formation rocks inferred by PIXL x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, and multispectral imaging on Mars

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Tice, Michael M., Hurowitz, Joel A., Allwood, Abigail C., Jones, Michael W. M., Orenstein, Brendan J., Davidoff, Scott, Wright, Austin P., Pedersen, David A.K. +20 more·2022·Science Advances

Abstract

Collocated crystal sizes and mineral identities are critical for interpreting textural relationships in rocks and testing geological hypotheses, but it has been previously impossible to unambiguously constrain these properties using in situ instruments on Mars rovers. Here, we demonstrate that diffracted and fluoresced x-rays detected by the PIXL instrument (an x-ray fluorescence microscope on the Perseverance rover) provide information about the presence or absence of coherent crystalline domains in various minerals. X-ray analysis and multispectral imaging of rocks from the Séítah formation on the floor of Jezero crater shows that they were emplaced as coarsely crystalline igneous phases. Olivine grains were then partially dissolved and filled by finely crystalline or amorphous secondary silicate, carbonate, sulfate, and chloride/oxychlorine minerals. These results support the hypothesis that Séítah formation rocks represent olivine cumulates altered by fluids far from chemical equilibrium at low water-rock ratios.

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  • PIXL and SHERLOC also detected carbonates in different targets along the rover traverse.

    “Mars2020s proximity science instruments PIXL and SHERLOC (Allwood etal.,2020; Bhartia etal.,2021) also detected carbonates in different target.along the rover traverse (Razzell Hollis etal.,2022; E. L. Scheller et al., 2022; Tice et al., 2022).”

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Authors
Tice, M. M., Hurowitz, J. A., Allwood, A. C., Jones, M. W. M., Orenstein, B. J., Davidoff, S., Wright, A. P., Pedersen, D. A. K., Henneke, J., Tosca, N. J., Moore, K. R., Clark, B. C., McLennan, S. M., Flannery, D. T., Steele, A., Brown, A. J., Zorzano, M.-P., Hickman-Lewis, K., Liu, Y., VanBommel, S. J., Schmidt, M. E., Kizovski, T. V., Treiman, A. H., O’Neil, L., Fairén, A. G., Shuster, D. L., Gupta, S., & The PIXL Team
Affiliations
  • Texas A&M University (US)
  • Stony Brook University (US)
  • California Institute of Technology (US)
  • Queensland University of Technology (AU)
  • Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
  • DTU Space (DK)
  • University of Cambridge (GB)
  • Space Science Institute (US)
  • Carnegie Institution for Science (US)
  • Shenzhen Planck Innovation (China) (CN)
  • Centro de Astrobiologia, Instituto National de Tecnica Aerospacial, Madrid, Spain.
  • Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
  • Washington University in St. Louis (US)
  • Brock University (CA)
  • Lunar and Planetary Institute (US)
  • University of Washington (US)
  • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
  • Imperial College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Tice, Michael M.
Venue
Science Advances
Published
2022-11-23
Volume
8
Issue
47
Pages
eabp9084-eabp9084
ISSN
2375-2548 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4310088519
Cited by
101
References
7
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 6
FWCI
8.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc
Locations
  • Science Advances (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • QUT ePrints (Queensland University of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Technical University of Denmark, DTU Orbit (Technical University of Denmark, DTU) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Apollo
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Planetary Science and Exploration
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astro and Planetary Science
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Geochemistry and Elemental Analysis
Keywords
olivine dissolution, igneous rock, fluid alteration, secondary minerals, carbonate minerals, sulfate minerals, PIXL, Perseverance rover, Jezero Crater, Mars

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