Low Abundance Materials at the Mars Pathfinder Landing Site: An Investigation Using Spectral Mixture Analysis and Related Techniques

Multispectral imaging from Mars Pathfinder

“…In its general appearance, the landscape was very similar to floodplains observed at the mouths of terrestrial examples of catastrophic flood channels (Golombek et al, 1999). While many of the rocks displayed surfaces coated with dust and/or indurated coatings, some rock faces and small cobbles appeared to be largely free of such coatings, allowing a more direct assessment of the primary rock mineralogy (e.g., McSween et al, 1999;Murchie et al, 2000;Farrand et al, 2001;Bell et al, 2002).…”

Mapping surface materials on Mars from Mars Pathfinder spectral images with HYPEREYE

“…Where the "gray rock" spectral class had a shallow absorption at or beyond 1000 nm (the end of the IMP spectral coverage), this second rock spectral class, "black rock" was initially described by [12] as having a deep absorption centered on 930 nm. [14] noted some variability in the position of the band minimum for different occurrences of "black rock". Murchie et al in [13] suggest that the IMP data indicate a greater abundance of this "black rock" class in the far field, especially in the vicinity of the distant Twin Peaks and Big Crater that lie on the horizon.…”

“…The fine grained materials making up the immobile and mobile surface layer (indurated soil and wind-blown dust) were also characterized on the basis of spectral characteristics [11]. Murchie et al [12,13] and Bell et al [14] recognized at least one other primary rock type besides the previously recognized "gray rock" spectral class. Where the "gray rock" spectral class had a shallow absorption at or beyond 1000 nm (the end of the IMP spectral coverage), this second rock spectral class, "black rock" was initially described by [12] as having a deep absorption centered on 930 nm.…”

“…The segments making up each octant were collected at disparate times leading to subtle differences between the segments in terms of lighting geometry and, potentially, calibration. [14] analyzed a version of the SuperPan calibrated by the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff [15]. Residual differences between the image segments making up each octant were empirically corrected as described by [13] and it is this latest version of the SuperPan that was used in this study.…”

“…Previous analyses of the IMP SuperPan dataset have focused on spectral parameterization of the data [10], [11], [13], spectral mixture analysis of the data [14], and analysis of rock morphology in association with spectral parameters [13]. The SuperPan data set has not been subjected to a comprehensive classification.…”