Soils of eagle crater and Meridiani Planum at the Opportunity Rover landing site

Citation

Soderblom LA, Anderson RC, Arvidson RE, Bell III JF, Cabrol NA, Calvin WM, Christensen PR, Clark BC, Economou TET, Ehlmann BL, Farrand WH, Fike DA, Gellert R, Glotch TD & Schröder C (2004) Soils of eagle crater and Meridiani Planum at the Opportunity Rover landing site. Science, 306 (5702), pp. 1723-1726. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1105127

Abstract
The soils at the Opportunity site are fine-grained basaltic sands mixed with dust and sulfate-rich outcrop debris. Hematite is concentrated in spherules eroded from the strata. Ongoing saltation exhumes the spherules and their fragments, concentrating them at the surface. Spherules emerge from soils coated, perhaps from subsurface cementation, by salts. Two types of vesicular clasts may represent basaltic sand sources. Eolian ripples, armored by well-sorted hematite-rich grains, pervade Meridiani Planum. The thickness of the soil on the plain is estimated to be about a meter. The flatness and thin cover suggest that the plain may represent the original sedimentary surface.

Notes
Additional co-authors: MP Golombek, R Greeley, JP Grotzinger, KE Herkenhoff, DJ Jerolmack, JR Johnson, B Jolliff, G Klingelhöfer, AH Knoll, ZA Learner, R Li, MC Malin, SM McLennan, HY McSween, DW Ming, RV Morris, JW Rice Jr, L Richter, R Rieder, D Rodionov, FP Seelos IV, JM Soderblom, SW Squyres, R Sullivan, WA Watters, CM Weitz, MB Wyatt, A Yen, J Zipfel

Journal
Science: Volume 306, Issue 5702

People

Dr Christian Schroeder

Senior Lecturer, Biological and Environmental Sciences