Amorphous Component in Martian Basaltic Soil in Global Perspective from MSL and MER Missions.

摘要

The mineralogy instrument CheMin onboard the MSL rover Curiosity analyzed by transmission XRD the <150 Em size fraction of putative global basaltic martian soil from scoops 4 and 5 of the Rocknest aeolian bedform (sol 81-120). Here, we combine chemical (APXS) and mineralogical (Mossbauer; MB) results from the MER rovers with chemical (APXS) and mineralogical (CheMin) results from Curiosity to constrain the relative proportions of amorphous and crystalline components, the bulk chemical composition of those components, and the gmineralogicalh nature of the amorphous component.