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We report on observations of hematite-bearing spherules at Meridiani Planum made using the Microscopic Imager (MI), Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), and Panoramic Camera (Pancam) instruments on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Spherules were observed on soil surfaces and in outcrop rocks, both on undisturbed surfaces and in abr...
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Context 1
... In the Sols leading up to our arrival at Victoria Crater (Sol 951), Opportunity performed 28 RAT grind operations in outcrop rocks that sliced through 91 individual spherules (Table 3). Because of motor stalls in the shoulder azimuth joint of the instrument deployment device (IDD) (beginning on Sol 654), and the loss of the encoder on the RAT grind motor (Sol 1045) the frequency of IDD operations has decreased. ...
Context 2
... methods were established for grinding after the RAT encoder failure, allowing grinding of the Cercedilla Outcrop near the margin of Victoria Crater (Sol 1178). In RAT holes in outcrop the number of spherules increases and the size decreases with distance south of Endurance (Table 3 and Figures 4 and 5) [Squyres et al., 2006b;Weitz et al., 2006]. Table 3 presents the number of spherules seen in each RAT grind hole. ...
Context 3
... RAT holes in outcrop the number of spherules increases and the size decreases with distance south of Endurance (Table 3 and Figures 4 and 5) [Squyres et al., 2006b;Weitz et al., 2006]. Table 3 presents the number of spherules seen in each RAT grind hole. For a more complete view of later Sols, we include two targets that were only brushed and not ground, because of the hardware constraints noted above. ...
Similar publications
This paper presents the results of Mars topographic mapping and lander and rover localization for the Opportunity rover at Meridiani Planum during the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) 2003 mission. By Sol 458, the Opportunity rover traversed a distance of 5.20 km. We localized the lander using two-way Doppler radio positioning and cartographic triangul...
Citations
... The oxidizing environment conditions were also present in the early Mars environment during the formation of hematite spherules, Mars. The laterite iron oxide concretions are of discoidal shape, whereas the Martian hematite spherules are of spherical shape (Squyres and Knoll 2005;Calvin et al. 2008). The lateritic iron oxide concretions range in size from a few centimeters to about 10 cm, whereas the Martian hematite spherules range in size from less than millimeters to about 6 mm (Calvin et al. 2008). ...
... The laterite iron oxide concretions are of discoidal shape, whereas the Martian hematite spherules are of spherical shape (Squyres and Knoll 2005;Calvin et al. 2008). The lateritic iron oxide concretions range in size from a few centimeters to about 10 cm, whereas the Martian hematite spherules range in size from less than millimeters to about 6 mm (Calvin et al. 2008). Lateritic iron oxide concretions are randomly distributed in the ex-situ laterite regolith of transported origin, but they are uniformly distributed in their original geological setting of in-situ formation. ...
... Lateritic iron oxide concretions are randomly distributed in the ex-situ laterite regolith of transported origin, but they are uniformly distributed in their original geological setting of in-situ formation. Martian hematite spherules are uniformly distributed in Burns Formation, Meridiani Planum, Mars (McLennan et al. 2005;Calvin et al. 2008). The host rock of lateritic iron oxide concretions is ex-situ laterite regolith (physically broken material of Fe duricrust from Primary laterite). ...
Iron oxide concretions are present in the lateritic regolith of the Damodar River basin. The concretions are of ellipsoidal, elongated, cylindrical and irregular shapes. The cross-section of the concretions show concentric rims of iron-oxide minerals. Petrography of lateritic iron oxide concretions shows quartz and mica grains within the iron oxide minerals groundmass. The alternate dark and light gray concentric rims of iron oxide minerals are visible in the concretions. Electron microprobe study and FTIR spectroscopy of lateritic concretions shows presence of goethite, hematite, quartz, clay and mica minerals. The etch pattern in quartz grains of the concretions, high substitution of Al for Fe3+ in the hematite and goethite structure, and high substitution of iron in kaolinite structure of concretions suggest intense chemical weathering, mobilization of iron-bearing fluid and Fe redox reactions during the formation of concretions. These lateritic iron oxide concretions are of ex-situ or derived origin. Due to fluvial erosion and transportation, the high-level ferruginous materials or primary laterites transfer to the downslope region as low-level secondary laterite. These secondary ferruginous materials deposited at a low-level have preserved iron oxide concretions.
... The micro-scale texture of the formation's sediments has four main elements: medium-to-coarse grained sand, nearly spherical (1-8 mm) diagenetic concretions, angular vugs (cavities), and fine-grained cement embedding everything else . The embedded concretions are rich in grey hematite (Klingelhöfer et al., 2004;Calvin et al. 2009), they are widely called blueberries (they are grey but look blue against the ubiquitous rusty colors of Mars). The blueberries only make a small weight percentage of the sediments (Golombek et al., 2006;Calvin et al., 2009). ...
... The embedded concretions are rich in grey hematite (Klingelhöfer et al., 2004;Calvin et al. 2009), they are widely called blueberries (they are grey but look blue against the ubiquitous rusty colors of Mars). The blueberries only make a small weight percentage of the sediments (Golombek et al., 2006;Calvin et al., 2009). ...
... Soil bedforms are shallow, usually less than 0.3 m deep, with the maximum found depth of close to 1 m (Golombek et al., 2014;Fenton et al., 2015). Erosion and size-sorting loosened and concentrated formerly embedded blueberries (and blueberry fragments) into a thin (1 cm) top layer to the soil bedforms (Soderblom et al., 2004;Arvidson et al., 2006;Calvin et al., 2009;Sullivan et al., 2011;Fenton et al. 2015). The surface densities of top, loose blueberries, and blueberry fragments are large, total numbers are huge (Calvin et al., 2009;Olsen, 2021). ...
A proposal is made to liberate water from an extensive reservoir of water bound to hydrated sulfate minerals in a geological structure under the Meridiani Planum called the Burns Formation. This formation of sediments spans the equator, is over 500 km wide, has an area larger than Lake Superior, and has depths typically between 200 m and 1,000 m. About 3 kJ of enthalpy must be transferred into the sediments for each 1 gram of water vapor liberated by dehydrating the sulfates. Relatively large energy requirements are needed to liberate water by the tonne and the kilotonne. A crucial part of the proposal is to link water liberation to power tower concentrated photovoltaic electricity generation and carbonylation steel-making, both of which produce a lot of process heat. This process heat is at suitable temperatures for dehydrating the main sulfate minerals in the Burns Formation. Carbonylation steel-making benefits from an easy-to-use source of hematite that lies in a thin layer on top of soils overlying the Burns Formation. Carbonylation steel-making produces steel powder. Powder sintering to sheet steel plus robotic cutting, welding, and bending then provide a manufacturing capability. Simple electricity generation plants and water liberation plants are described that can be manufactured locally. This makes possible a large power generation capacity on the Meridiani Planum, including a large process heat-generating capacity and a deployment of water liberation equipment that scales with the available process heat capacity.
... Opportunity's PanCam directly imaged huge numbers of blueberries during the rover's years-long traverse from Eagle Crater to Endeavour Crater [12][13][14][15][16]. It was soon realized that loose blueberries on top of the soil were probably responsible for the regional-scale (>150,000 km 2 ) surface hematite detection made earlier by the orbiting TES [16]. ...
... Opportunity's PanCam and Mini-TES instrument made measurements that indicate that blueberries have high levels of crystalline hematite [9,10,12]. These results are not specific enough to draw highly resolved hematite fractions in blueberries. ...
... Opportunity's Mini-TES instrument made even more critical measurements for strongly restricting the possible compositions of blueberries; that is, this Mini-TES could not detect silicate minerals above its detection threshold [12]. This null result imposes an upper bound on the size of the SiO 2 fraction in APXS blueberry compositions. ...
Between 2004 and 2018, NASA’s rover Opportunity found huge numbers of small, hematite-rich spherules (commonly called blueberries) on the Meridiani Planum of Mars. The standard oxide composition distributions of blueberries have remained poorly constrained, with previous published analyses leaving hematite content somewhere in the broad range of 24–100 wt%. A searching mass-balance analysis is introduced and applied to constrain possible standard oxide composition distributions of blueberries consistent with the non-detection of silicates in blueberries by Opportunity’s instruments. This analysis found three groups of complete solution sets among the mass-balance ions consistent with the non-detection of silicates; although, a simple extension of the analysis indicates that one larger space of solutions incorporates all three groups of solutions. Enforcing consistency with the non-detection of silicates in blueberries constrains the hematite content in most of blueberry samples to between 79.5 and 99.85 wt%. A feature of the largest group of complete solution sets is that five oxides/elements, MgO, P2O5, Na2O, SO3, and Cl, collectively have a summed weight percentage that averages close to 6 wt%, while the weight percentage of nickel is close to 0.3 wt% in all solutions. Searches over multidimensional spaces of filtering composition distributions of basaltic and dusty soils were a methodological advance.
... Early experiments showed blueberries are rich in hematite [5][6][7][8]. So many blueberries were found in Opportunity's first months on the plain [9] that Squyres et al. [8] suggested that blueberries "appear to be the primary carriers of the coarse-grained gray hematite that was detected from orbit by the Mars Global Surveyor TES instrument." ...
... Blueberry composition is discussed in detail in a separate paper in preparation. Although, the existing papers [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]35] on blueberry composition certainly provide enough evidence on the richness of the hematite content in blueberries to make harvesting attractive as a precursor to steel-making on the plain. Given this, and the paper in preparation, the subject of the composition of blueberries is not pursued here. ...
... A key point for blueberry harvesting, that photographs of Fig. 4A, Fig. 4B illustrate (as well as hundreds of other images of close-ups of wheel-tracks in soils and all the other trench images in the A_NASA and A_ASU archives), is that loose blueberries are concentrated in a thin layer at the top of basaltic soil bedforms [8,9,14,20,30,31] (this layer of loose blueberries is labeled LB in Fig. 4A), or loose blueberries rest directly on top outcrop (see, for example, Fig. 2B). Loose blueberries are not found more than 1 cm below the top surface of basaltic soil in the interior of bedforms. ...
The idea of harvesting iron oxide from the top surfaces of the Meridiani Planum of Mars is presented. The main goal of such harvesting is to turn a small fraction of the iron oxide into steel infrastructure for scientific laboratories and scientific instruments (such as radio telescopes). The iron oxide is principally found in spherical concretions (and fragments of these) that are rich in grey-hematite (Fe 2 O 3 ) and that are widely and informally known as “blueberries.” Large numbers of these blueberries lie on top of soil bedforms across the Meridiani Planum. A review of the literature relevant to Martian blueberries, the Burns Formation, and the Meridiani Planum is given. This literature is large and detailed mainly due to the explorations and experiments performed by Opportunity, one of two of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs), that landed on Mars in 2004. The detailed knowledge of blueberries and their context presented in the review is important for understanding the practical actions needed to carry out blueberry harvesting. A short piece of data analysis is presented that finds the summed fractional area of the Meridiani Planum covered by small
craters (with rim diameters between 5 m and 35 m) during the past 3.5 billion years to be close to 1. The main action of blueberry harvesting is simply to lift loose materials from the top layer (less than 1 cm thick) from soil bedforms (that rest on top of the Burns Formation of the Meridiani Planum) to a temporary holding place where these loose materials can be further processed. This action lifts blueberries, blueberry fragments, basaltic soils, also a meteoritic component to the soils (rich in magnetite and nickel), some blocks of crater ejecta made of Burns Formation sediment, and small amounts of non-sediment crater ejecta thrown great distances onto the Meridiani Planum. A first design for a blueberry harvester is presented. This first harvester is primarily intended to be operated on smooth sheet soil bedforms. These smooth sheet bedforms are very smooth, flat, and cover areas of many square kilometers: Smooth sheets are especially easy working environments for a harvester. The first harvester design lifts the top layer of loose materials to a trough using both a rotating drum with blades and guided ballistics. From the trough, the loose material can be
moved higher using augurs. The given design raises the loose material a total of 1.5 m. At this height the loose materials are passed through two rotating sieves and across two magnetic separators, to separate basaltic soil and small blocks of sediment from the blueberry and meteoritic material, and deposit this high-iron content material into three, sized-classed, holding containers. The harvested blueberry and meteoritic materials are then passed from the holding containers to transport vehicles using augurs (in a similar fashion to combine harvesters of wheat).
... Specifically, MER rovers detected in-situ spherules at Meridiani Planum (Opportunity) and on the floor of the Gusev Crater (Spirit) [2,3]. Extensive observations with the Mössbauer [4,5], Alpha-Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) [6] and Mini-TES [7] instruments, confirmed that these spherules are dominantly composed of hematite. These spherules are found within and around outcrop rocks ( Figure 1C) at Meridiani Planum, and rolling into the interior of Endurance crater ( Figure 1D) [7]. ...
... Extensive observations with the Mössbauer [4,5], Alpha-Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) [6] and Mini-TES [7] instruments, confirmed that these spherules are dominantly composed of hematite. These spherules are found within and around outcrop rocks ( Figure 1C) at Meridiani Planum, and rolling into the interior of Endurance crater ( Figure 1D) [7]. A variety of hypotheses have been formulated to explain the origin of the Martian haematite spherules. ...
... Afterwards, the analytical instruments on board the Opportunity rover confirmed the presence of haematite in the form of concretions/spherules ( Figure 1A,B), which were called "blueberries" by the mission scientists. These grains were discovered embedded in S-rich sedimentary layered bedrocks ( Figure 1C,D) and on the surface of dune crests as whole and broken spherules [7]. Spherule size and shape do not change significantly along the more than 7 km traversed by Opportunity from Eagle Crater to Victoria Crater. ...
High-resolution images of Mars from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) rovers revealed mm-size loose haematite spherulitic deposits (nicknamed “blueberries”) similar to terrestrial iron-ooids, for which both abiotic and biotic genetic hypotheses have been proposed. Understanding the formation mechanism of these haematite spherules can thus improve our knowledge on the possible geologic evolution and links to life development on Mars. Here, we show that shape, size, fabric and mineralogical composition of the Martian spherules share similarities with corresponding iron spherules currently forming on the Earth over an active submarine hydrothermal system located off Panarea Island (Aeolian Islands, Mediterranean Sea). Hydrothermal fluids associated with volcanic activity enable these terrestrial spheroidal grains to form and grow. The recent exceptional discovery of a still working iron-ooid source on the Earth provides indications that past hydrothermal activity on the Red Planet is a possible scenario to be considered as the cause of formation of these enigmatic iron grains.
... Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the formation process of these hematite concretions, with a majority of workers favoring a sedimentary diagenetic mode of origin (e.g. McLennan et al., 2005;Calvin et al., 2008;Sefton-Nash and Catling, 2008). However, alternative modes of forming these spherules have also been suggested. ...
... A near perfect terrestrial analogue locality to Mars that mimics the concretions is still elusive on Earth; as pointed out by Calvin et al. (2008), no single terrestrial analogue can account for all attributes of the spherules found on Mars. However, continued research on terrestrial analogue sites helps to better understand the possible geologic evolution and near-surface processes on Mars. ...
The discovery of iron-bearing concretions is one of the exciting discoveries in recent past on Mars. We report here an analog terrestrial site hosting hematite-bearing concretion belonging to Jhuran sandstone, Kutch, India. Based on petrography, mineralogy, geochemistry and spectral studies (Visible Near Infrared: VNIR and Mössbauer), we found a very good match of Jhuran concretion with the “Martian blueberries”. The Jhuran and Martian concretions share similar textural attributes and are of comparable size, but are geochemically different. Based on VNIR study, the mineralogy of concretions is constrained to comprise hematite, goethite and kaolinite; however, Mössbauer spectra could not detect the pure hematite phase, and instead, suggest the presence of a poorly crystalline mixture of goetheite-hematite. Thus, the Jhuran concretions are most commonly mixtures of goethite and hematite, and not pure hematite. The enrichment of Ni within concretions as compared to the host sandstones is also comparable with the reported Ni-enrichment of Martian concretions. We propose sedimentary diagenesis as the most feasible process that can explain incorporation of Ni into the concretions by coupled substitution in the iron oxide structure. This is inconsistent with the cosmic spherule hypothesis to explain Martian concretion, and instead, sedimentary diagenetic processes appear more likely.
Finally, the morphology, texture, geochemistry and spectroscopic investigations suggest that the Jhuran iron concretions most likely formed due to sedimentary diagenetic processes, similar to inferences from other Martian analogue localities. Therefore, this study has relevance for understanding the formation processes of Martian blueberries and diagenetic processes on Mars. The Kutch area also has geological similarity with other aspects of ancient Mars and could be a potential testing site for carrying out future Mars exploration studies on Earth.
... However, the nature of Martian spherules and exact mechanism of the formation process (pre-, syn or post depositional process) is still inconclusive. Several hypotheses including the impact origin have been proposed for understanding the formation of the Martian hematite spherules, however, the sedimentary diagenetic origin appears to be more convincing and relevant (McLennan et al., 2005;Calvin et al., 2008;Sefton-Nash and Catling, 2008). Moreover, the recent identification (by Mars Science Laboratory 'Curiosity') of sedimentary rocks and the characteristic primary structures (cross bedding, fine laminated structures) at Gale crater in Mars is significant and unambiguously support the past diagenetic history of Mars and genetic linkages of concretion formation. ...
... Five nights of sample analysis were more complete than previously done for a sample of drills by the CheMin X-ray diffractometers and data was analyzed by means of Rietveld refining and full sample fitting for a quantitative mineralogy. The mineralogy of gale craters is rich in hematite and less magnetite [15].The discovery of the signature of a large quantity of Hematite from the Orbit of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES), was one of the most important discoveries at the landing site in the Meridiani Planum at the Mars Exploration Rover [16].That's why the Endeavor Meridiani crater site and the Gale crater site were chosen for implementation. Quite exceptional in its orbital signature is the Meridiani Planum; the MGS Thermal Emission Spectrometer has shown the highest, most detailed significance of any field on the planet for crystalline hematite. ...
NASA exploration mission on Mars includes the use of rovers and sensors communicating via wireless sensor networks. The network components have a limited range of transmission, low power consumption, low price and a small lifespan. A wireless network's performance is mainly dependent on the RF environment. A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) on the Mars ground is planned to deploy wireless sensors capable of operating under harsh environmental conditions to detect few properties of regolith on the Martian surface. The main interest property is dielectric permittivity and permeability. Since communicating on the Mars is a difficult and challenging task, the behavior of communications surfaces can be predicted by a channel model. So, efforts have been put to Develop a channel propagation Model to know the behavior of communication channel on the atmosphere of Mars. In order to study the model for radio propagation on Mars, two sites were selected from Gale crater and Meridian Planum at different sites for the Mars with near-flat surfaces, a certain area with peaks and a region with few craters.
... These form a lag deposit on top of a basaltic soil unit that covers the area Soderblom et al., 2004). Chemical analysis of regolith at Hematite Slope at Meridiani Planum, carried out by Opportunity's APXS, determined a high total Fe content of 26.5 wt% for a sample known as Hema2 , attributed to the presence of haematite spherules (Calvin et al., 2008). ...
Existing martian simulants are predominantly based on the chemistry of the average ‘global’ martian regolith as defined by data on chemical and mineralogical variability detected by orbiting spacecraft, surface rovers and landers. We have therefore developed new martian simulants based on the known composition of regolith from four different martian surface environments: an early basaltic terrain, a sulfur-rich regolith, a haematite-rich regolith and a contemporary Mars regolith. Simulants have been developed so that the Fe2+/Fe3+ ratios can be adjusted, if necessary, leading to the development of four standard simulants and four Fe-modified simulants. Characterisation of the simulants confirm that all but two (both sulfur-rich) are within 5 wt% of the martian chemistries that they were based on and, unlike previous simulants, they have Fe2+/Fe3+ ratios comparable to those found on Mars. Here we outline the design, production and characterisation of these new martian regolith simulants. These are to be used initially in experiments to study the potential habitability of martian environments in which Fe may be a key energy source.
... Concretions are of great interest in planetary exploration, as ''blueberries'' believed to be concretions have already been found at multiple places on Mars (e.g., Chan et al., 2004Chan et al., , 2005Squyres et al., 2004;Grotzinger et al., 2005;Calvin et al., 2008). Concretions are evidence of groundwater involved in cementation, and thus, if Earth examples preserve biosignatures, there is a similar possibility that such signatures could be found on other planetary bodies such as Mars. ...
Microbial life permeates Earth's critical zone and has likely inhabited nearly all our planet's surface and near subsurface since before the beginning of the sedimentary rock record. Given the vast time that Earth has been teeming with life, do astrobiologists truly understand what geological features untouched by biological processes would look like? In the search for extraterrestrial life in the Universe, it is critical to determine what constitutes a biosignature across multiple scales, and how this compares with "abiosignatures" formed by nonliving processes. Developing standards for abiotic and biotic characteristics would provide quantitative metrics for comparison across different data types and observational time frames. The evidence for life detection falls into three categories of biosignatures: (1) substances, such as elemental abundances, isotopes, molecules, allotropes, enantiomers, minerals, and their associated properties; (2) objects that are physical features such as mats, fossils including trace-fossils and microbialites (stromatolites), and concretions; and (3) patterns, such as physical three-dimensional or conceptual n-dimensional relationships of physical or chemical phenomena, including patterns of intermolecular abundances of organic homologues, and patterns of stable isotopic abundances between and within compounds. Five key challenges that warrant future exploration by the astrobiology community include the following: (1) examining phenomena at the "right" spatial scales because biosignatures may elude us if not examined with the appropriate instrumentation or modeling approach at that specific scale; (2) identifying the precise context across multiple spatial and temporal scales to understand how tangible biosignatures may or may not be preserved; (3) increasing capability to mine big data sets to reveal relationships, for example, how Earth's mineral diversity may have evolved in conjunction with life; (4) leveraging cyberinfrastructure for data management of biosignature types, characteristics, and classifications; and (5) using three-dimensional to n-D representations of biotic and abiotic models overlain on multiple overlapping spatial and temporal relationships to provide new insights.
