SHERLOC Raman Mineral Class Detections of the Mars 2020 Crater Floor Campaign

Corpolongo, Andrea; Jakubek, Ryan S. S.; Burton, Aaron S. S.; Brown, Adrian J. J.; Yanchilina, Anastasia; Czaja, Andrew D. D.; Steele, Andrew; Wogsland, Brittan V. V.; Lee, Carina; Flannery, David; Baker, Desiree; Cloutis, Edward A. A.; Cardarelli, Emily; Scheller, Eva L. L.; Berger, Eve L. L.; McCubbin, Francis M. M.; Hollis, Joseph Razzell; Hickman-Lewis, Keyron; Steadman, Kim; Uckert, Kyle; DeFlores, Lauren; Kah, Linda; Beegle, Luther W. W.; Fries, Marc; Minitti, Michelle; Haney, Nikole C. C.; Conrad, Pamela; Morris, Richard V. V.; Bhartia, Rohit; Roppel, Ryan; Siljestroem, Sandra; Asher, Sanford A. A.; Bykov, Sergei V. V.; Sharma, Sunanda; Shkolyar, Svetlana; Fornaro, Teresa; Abbey, William
2023
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
DOI
10.1029/2022JE007455
The goals of NASA's Mars 2020 mission include searching for evidence of ancient life on Mars, studying the geology of Jezero crater, understanding Mars' current and past climate, and preparing for human exploration of Mars. During the mission's first science campaign, the Perseverance rover's SHERLOC deep UV Raman and fluorescence instrument collected microscale, two-dimensional Raman and fluorescence images on 10 natural (unabraded) and abraded targets on two different Jezero crater floor units: Seitah and Maaz. We report SHERLOC Raman measurements collected during the Crater Floor Campaign and discuss their implications regarding the origin and history of Seitah and Maaz. The data support the conclusion that Seitah and Maaz are mineralogically distinct igneous units with complex aqueous alteration histories and suggest that the Jezero crater floor once hosted an environment capable of supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of that life, if it existed.