- cross-posted to:
- curiosityrover
- cross-posted to:
- curiosityrover
Episode 176 A notably red slab of rock with some even more notable features has been the target of intense investigation for the past two weeks. Now Perseverance has dug into it with its abrading tool and opened up a deeper level of intrigue.
Not necessarily. Here comes another episode of Wide World of Iron Minerals…
The mineral that Prof. Ruff refers to - hematite - contains ferric iron, as opposed to the other kind, ferrous iron. The difference between the two is simple - ferric iron is missing 3 electrons, whereas ferrous is only missing 2. Some process has to strip the ferrous iron of that extra electron - it requires noticeably more energy to make ferric than ferrous. Mars has plenty of the ferrous kind, like you find in the rocks on the Jezero crater floor; it’s what you’d generally expect to find in the planet’s hard rock. So you want to pay attention when you get the ferric kind - especially when you find it in the “soft rock”, like Percy is exploring now. One way of making ferric is exposing it to free atmospheric oxygen and moisture, as on modern Earth, producing various “oxidized” minerals, which some casually call “rust”. But there are other ways for oxygen to do the job, as well - say, when it’s dissolved in groundwater. And this Neretva Vallis site evidently had plenty of groundwater. The oxygen content of that groundwater, however, is kind of a big question.
Thing of it is, hematite can also be produced without water and oxygen, purely by volcanic action, too. So hematite has a lot to say either way, it’s one of those minerals to watch.
The phenomenon of iron minerals on Mars has been a big deal, and will continue to be. Opportunity’s landing site was chosen because the variety of hematite that satellites detected there was unusual, and that led to the discovery of sandstone laid down by massive amounts of water - the first sedimentary rock ever discovered off Earth. Without that discovery, I’m not sure that Percy gets sent to Mars. And I haven’t even started to talk about other sources of ferric iron, like you find in the dust, or all the weird stuff that happens when sulfur and iron get together and have a baby…
EDITED to talk about hard and soft rocks. Don’t giggle, we’re geologists.
Thank you for the excellent write up, I have so many questions!
Wouldn’t we expect all the ground water to have no dissolved oxygen? Because there is no oxygen atmosphere to replenish it… I’m shaky on how dissolved oxygen can exist in water, but I thought it was due to churn with gaseous oxygen in the atmosphere mixing with waves or rivers or any turbulent water.
Groundwater on Mars wouldn’t have access to that, or at least for a very very long time
Very late reply - but your question is totally fair, so I hope you don’t mind:
On the face of it, you’d expect Martian groundwater to be pretty damned poor in dissolved oxygen, yes, and groundwater on Earth does get its oxygen almost entirely from the atmosphere, as you mentioned. (This would be easier on Earth than Mars due to the greater atmospheric pressure, among other things.) However:
If you’ve heard anything about recent discoveries of “dark oxygen” being generated on Earth’s deep seafloor, you might agree with me that nature often finds a way to create chemical niches where interesting stuff happens. In the just-discovered terrestrial case, metals on the seafloor are essentially acting as batteries, zapping water and splitting the oxygen off from the hydrogen. Obviously I can’t expect that this process was occurring at the Jezero Delta, but I’m cautious about saying that the groundwater there never had any dissolved oxygen, especially when we know that hot water can break down minerals and release the oxygen within.
So again, the question is a good one, but it’s already been partially answered by Curiosity, which found the following on the floor of Gale Crater:
Good article to read if you have the time…