Alteration of a Mantle-Derived Dunite Boulder in Jezero Crater, MarsShow others and affiliations
2026 (English)In: Geophysical Research Letters, ISSN 0094-8276, E-ISSN 1944-8007, Vol. 53, no 13Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In 2023, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover explored the youngest preserved deposits on the Western fan of Jezero crater, Mars: a field of meter-scale boulders dispersed above the previously explored sandstone and siltstone units. Reflectance spectra of the boulders delineated two classes, one olivine-bearing and one pyroxene-bearing. A representative boulder from each class was analyzed; here, we present proximity data from the olivine-rich target, Falcon Lake, revealing a magnesian dunite (Fo74). Such magnesian dunite is distinct from other igneous materials observed in Jezero and consistent with crystallization from a mantle-derived partial melt. Micron and mm-scale secondary minerals, identified on the abraded patch of Falcon Lake, include Mg-serpentine, Fe-Mg carbonate, and Mg,Fe sulfate. This alteration sequence records sequential precipitation from a single evolving fluid, and the coexistence of disequilibrium sulfate and siderite represents a microscale analog to planet-wide associations and detections of carbonates and sulfates
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
American Geophysical Union (AGU) , 2026. Vol. 53, no 13
Keywords [en]
boulder, carbonate, dunite, Jezero crater, perseverance rover, sulfate
National Category
Geology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-81970DOI: 10.1029/2025GL121438Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105043657904OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-81970DiVA, id: diva2:2087264
Note
Funding text: The authors are grateful to the Mars 2020 Science and Engineering teams, especially the PIXL and SHERLOC teams, for making this work possible. The authors thank Christian Tate for the development of the three-dimensional models. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Mars 2020 Participating Scientist Grant 80NSSC21K0331 to K.L.S and 80NSSC21K0328 to S.J.V. A portion of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). S.S. acknowledges funding from the Swedish National Space Agency (contracts 2021-00092 and 2024-00240) and the Swedish Research Council (2023-03858). J.A.H. acknowledges funding from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (subcontract #1529702). The authors thank Valerie Payr\u00E9 and an anonymous reviewer whose feedback helped improve this manuscript.
Funding details: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, (80NM0018D0004); National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, (1529702); Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL; Mars 2020 Science and Engineering teams, (80NSSC21K0328, 80NSSC21K0331); Vetenskapsrådet, VR, (2023-03858); Vetenskapsrådet, VR; Swedish National Space Agency, SNSA, (2021-00092, 2024-00240); Swedish National Space Agency, SNSA
2026-07-202026-07-202026-07-20Bibliographically approved