Nature (December 22, 2005) Options

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

There are two new MER-related papers in the December 22, 2005, issue of Nature. See also the the accompanying News and Views piece by Mark Bullock.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Mars Region Probably Less Watery In Past Than Thought, Says Study
December 21, 2005
University of Colorado at Boulder News Services

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

There are two new MER-related papers in the December 22, 2005, issue of Nature. See also the the accompanying News and Views piece by Mark Bullock.

I was interested in how McCollom and Hynek would account for jarosite in their model, so I noted the following excerpt (with internal references omitted) from their paper:

"Jarosite, a mineral observed in the Meridiani bedrocks, did not occur in any of our equilibrium models. Because jarosite is unstable in equilibrium with haematite, it apparently persists as a metastable mineral owing to kinetic constraints and may have formed during evaporation or as a weathering product subsequent to other alteration."

In addition, Figure 1 from their paper is a ternary diagram that shows the Meridiani bedrocks falling on a mixing line between martian basalts and the pure sulfur endmember.

Interesting.