“…The finest grains could represent a globally homogenized material that has also been observed at the Viking and Mars Pathfinder landing sites (Christensen and Moore, 1992;Bell et al, 2000). Reflectance spectra of Venus' surface measured at the Venera 9-10 landing sites (Ekonomov et al, 1980) roughly match with the spectrum of the ferric oxide hematite (-Fe 2 O 3 ) heated to Venus' surface temperatures (Pieters et al, 1986), as can be seen in Figures 3 and 4. On Mars and Venus, surface materials exhibit specific absorptions in the visible and near-infrared spectral ranges, indicating the presence of Fe 3þ -bearing (ferric) species, which are uncommon in unaltered basalts.…”