WHAT DEPOSITIONAL PROCESSES AND PALEOENVIRONMENTS FORMED THE LAYERED SULFATE UNIT IN GALE CRATER, MARS ? : INSIGHTS FROM MARKER BAND VALLEY
Résumé
The stratigraphy of Aeolis Mons, Gale crater, is considered to provide a record of the possible ‘drying out’ of Mars with a temporal evolu-tion from clay-bearing mudstones, to sulfate-bearing rocks, to anhydrous minerals [1]. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover is investigating the deposi-tional environments of the layered sulfate-bearing unit considered to be from a ‘drier’ period than the underly-ing clay-bearing strata [1, 2, 3]. On sol 3560, Curiosity commenced exploration of the informally named Marker Band Valley (Figure 1) where the sulfate-bearing strata are exposed in local buttes. One of the overarching questions is what depositional environ-ments do the sulfate-bearing-units record. Here, we characterize the stratigraphic relations visible in these scarps and reconstruct processes of deposition of the sedimentary strata and their paleoenvironments.
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