Spectral properties of simulated impact glasses produced from martian soil analogue JSC Mars-1

Abstract

To simulate the formation of impact glasses on Mars, an analogue of Martian bright soil (altered volcanic soil JSC Mars-1) was melted at relevant oxygen fugacities using a pulsed laser and a resistance furnace. Reduction of Fe 3+ to Fe 2+ and in some cases formation of nanophase Fe spatial resolution and wavelength coverage may detect impact glasses at certain locations, e.g., in the vicinity of fresh impact craters. Such dark materials are usually interpreted as accumulations of mafic volcanic sand, but the possibility of an impact melt origin of such materials also should be considered. In addition, our data suggest that high contents of feldspars or zeolites are not necessary to produce the transparency feature at 12.1 µm typical of Martian dust spectra.

Evidence for Hesperian impact-induced hydrothermalism on Mars

“…Some melts that were still molten and fluid would then be re-mobilized off the central uplift by gravity and transported to lower topographic regions where they merge with other melt-bearing bodies on the crater floor. The spectrally featureless nature of this unit in the VNIR is also consistent with an impact melt interpretation as clast-poor impact melt-bearing impactites can often be glassy rocks (holohyaline to hypocrystalline), which, unless hydrated, would appear spectrally featureless due to their relatively amorphous nature (e.g., Morris et al, 1995;Moroz et al, 2009).…”

Determining volcanic eruption styles on Earth and Mars from crystallinity measurements

“…Although multiple lines of evidence suggest the presence of a basaltic glass component, the origin and nature of this amorphous component is unknown 39 . Both volcanic eruptions and impacts have the potential to widely distribute glass on the surface of Mars 41,42 . Recent experimental work suggests a correlation between glass composition and the shape of the diffuse amorphous peak as analysed by XRD 43 .…”

Wind Tunnels for the Study of Particle Transport

“…These are properties which can be close to Mars dust conditions, while the chemistry is in most cases different from the chemical properties of the Martian dust. As seen in table 2 the chemical composition of JSC-1 described by Morris et al (2001) and Moroz et al (2009) and Salten Skov I (Nørnberg et al 2004, Nørnberg et al 2009 Marlow et al (2008). The magnetic properties of the atmospheric dust on Mars is estimated to have a saturation magnetization J s of 2.5 Am 2 /kg (Morris et al 2001), which is not far from the J s of dust captured by Morris at al.…”