TY - JOUR

T1 - Overview and Results From the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover's First Science Campaign on the Jezero Crater Floor

AU - Sun, Vivian Z.

AU - Hand, Kevin P.

AU - Stack, Kathryn M.

AU - Farley, Ken A.

AU - Simon, Justin I.

AU - Newman, Claire

AU - Sharma, Sunanda

AU - Liu, Yang

AU - Wiens, Roger C.

AU - Williams, Amy J.

AU - Tosca, Nicholas

AU - Alwmark, Sanna

AU - Beyssac, Olivier

AU - Brown, Adrian

AU - Calef, Fred

AU - Cardarelli, Emily L.

AU - Clavé, Elise

AU - Cohen, Barbara

AU - Corpolongo, Andrea

AU - Czaja, Andrew D.

AU - Del Sesto, Tyler

AU - Fairen, Alberto

AU - Fornaro, Teresa

AU - Fouchet, Thierry

AU - Garczynski, Brad

AU - Gupta, Sanjeev

AU - Herd, Chris D.K.

AU - Hickman-Lewis, Keyron

AU - Horgan, Briony

AU - Johnson, Jeffrey

AU - Kinch, Kjartan

AU - Kizovski, Tanya

AU - Kronyak, Rachel

AU - Lange, Robert

AU - Mandon, Lucia

AU - Milkovich, Sarah

AU - Moeller, Robert

AU - Núñez, Jorge

AU - Paar, Gerhard

AU - Pyrzak, Guy

AU - Quantin-Nataf, Cathy

AU - Shuster, David L.

AU - Siljestrom, Sandra

AU - Steele, Andrew

AU - Tice, Michael

AU - Toupet, Olivier

AU - Udry, Arya

AU - Vaughan, Alicia

AU - Wogsland, Brittan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and The Authors. Government sponsorship acknowledged. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. After a 100-sol period of commissioning and the Ingenuity Helicopter technology demonstration, Perseverance began its first science campaign to explore the enigmatic Jezero crater floor, whose igneous or sedimentary origins have been much debated in the scientific community. This paper describes the campaign plan developed to explore the crater floor's Máaz and Séítah formations and summarizes the results of the campaign between sols 100–379. By the end of the campaign, Perseverance had traversed more than 5 km, created seven abrasion patches, and sealed nine samples and a witness tube. Analysis of remote and proximity science observations show that the Máaz and Séítah formations are igneous in origin and composed of five and two geologic members, respectively. The Séítah formation represents the olivine-rich cumulate formed from differentiation of a slowly cooling melt or magma body, and the Máaz formation likely represents a separate series of lava flows emplaced after Séítah. The Máaz and Séítah rocks also preserve evidence of multiple episodes of aqueous alteration in secondary minerals like carbonate, Fe/Mg phyllosilicates, sulfates, and perchlorate, and surficial coatings. Post-emplacement processes tilted the rocks near the Máaz-Séítah contact and substantial erosion modified the crater floor rocks to their present-day expressions. Results from this crater floor campaign, including those obtained upon return of the collected samples, will help to build the geologic history of events that occurred in Jezero crater and provide time constraints on the formation of the Jezero delta.

AB - The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. After a 100-sol period of commissioning and the Ingenuity Helicopter technology demonstration, Perseverance began its first science campaign to explore the enigmatic Jezero crater floor, whose igneous or sedimentary origins have been much debated in the scientific community. This paper describes the campaign plan developed to explore the crater floor's Máaz and Séítah formations and summarizes the results of the campaign between sols 100–379. By the end of the campaign, Perseverance had traversed more than 5 km, created seven abrasion patches, and sealed nine samples and a witness tube. Analysis of remote and proximity science observations show that the Máaz and Séítah formations are igneous in origin and composed of five and two geologic members, respectively. The Séítah formation represents the olivine-rich cumulate formed from differentiation of a slowly cooling melt or magma body, and the Máaz formation likely represents a separate series of lava flows emplaced after Séítah. The Máaz and Séítah rocks also preserve evidence of multiple episodes of aqueous alteration in secondary minerals like carbonate, Fe/Mg phyllosilicates, sulfates, and perchlorate, and surficial coatings. Post-emplacement processes tilted the rocks near the Máaz-Séítah contact and substantial erosion modified the crater floor rocks to their present-day expressions. Results from this crater floor campaign, including those obtained upon return of the collected samples, will help to build the geologic history of events that occurred in Jezero crater and provide time constraints on the formation of the Jezero delta.

KW - Jezero

KW - Mars

KW - Perseverance

KW - rover

U2 - 10.1029/2022JE007613

DO - 10.1029/2022JE007613

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85163299408

VL - 128

JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

SN - 0148-0227

IS - 6

M1 - e2022JE007613

ER -