Are oxidized shergottite-like basalts an alternative to "andesite" on Mars?

V. E. Hamilton and M. E. Minitti

Abstract

We acquired thermal emission spectra of oxidized synthetic martian meteorite-like basalts for comparison to martian surface spectra acquired by the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (MGS TES). Unlike biconical reflectance spectra, we find that the thermal emission spectra of the oxidized basalts do not provide good spectral matches to the martian spectra. The mineralogies represented by the oxidized basalt spectra were modeled using a linear deconvolution algorithm and end member set previously used to derive mineralogies for the martian surface spectra. The mineralogies obtained from linear deconvolution modeling of the oxidized basalt spectra do not match well with mineralogies previously derived from the martian surface spectra. Although oxidized martian meteorite-like basalts may be viable analogues for some martian materials, our results suggest that they cannot explain the two primary surface mineralogies measured by MGS TES.

Geophys. Res. Lett., in press

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