Tag Archives: clay minerals

HiRISE: Bedrock riddles of Nili Fossae

This image of the Nili Fossae region, to the west of the great Isidis basin, shows layered bedrock with many impact craters. Nili Fossae is one of the most mineralogically important sites on Mars. Remote observations by the infrared spectrometer … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Plains with clay exposures

Plains with clay exposures. If at first you don’t succeed: an earlier observation we took of this area in 2016 was too hazy to study, so a re-image can get us the closer look at clay exposures we wanted. HiRISE … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Mind your deposit

Mind your deposit. The CRISM instrument on MRO (a spectrometer) has detected clay deposits here that is a very uncommon sedimentary setting. HiRISE Picture of the Day archive. [More at links]

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HiRISE: In western Mawrth Vallis

In western Mawrth Vallis. The layered deposits here exhibit strong and diverse spectral signatures of clays. HiRISE Picture of the Day archive. [More at links]

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HiRISE: Collapsed material on the floor of Orson Welles Crater

Collapsed material on the floor of Orson Welles Crater. This observation captures collapsed blocks of material on floor of Orson Welles Crater. Layers and the clay minerals found in this 125-kilometer crater are evidence that it once contained a lake. … Continue reading

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Detecting carbonates on the martian surface

Was Mars warm and wet enough to support life during the planet’s first few hundred million years? Scars of ancient lakes and rivers, as well as minerals that form only when water is present, have convinced many researchers that Mars … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Clay-rich terrain in the Eridania Basin

HiRISE reveals small-scale shapes that often correlate with mineral units and provides information about stratigraphy (i.e., what’s on top and relative ages). This image was acquired for co-analysis with a spectrometer instrument also on our spacecraft called CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Uncommon clay

Uncommon clay. There are some uncommon clays in this sedimentary plain, as first detected in low resolution by the OMEGA instrument on the Mars Express Orbiter. Note the tight cluster of impacts. This image is in the Terra Cimmeria region … Continue reading

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CRISM: Hydrated minerals of Cydonia Colles

In this scene we observe the knobs within the northern lowlands (Acidalia Planitia) that are Fe/Mg phyllosilicate-bearing (pink-blue) and small, patchy exposures of hydrated silica (green) surrounding the knobs. Previously, phyllosilicates have only been found within impact craters in the … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Looking at martian salts and clays

This 3D perspective view is a composite of both HiRISE and data from CRISM, another instrument onboard MRO. This view covers a small patch of ancient Martian real estate in Terra Sirenum. CRISM collects spectral data that can be used … Continue reading

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