NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Groundwater Modified ‘Most Chemically Diverse Part’ of Gale Crater

NASA's Curiosity rover has studied the Martian area of Glen Torridon, where the bedrock was altered by groundwater during the planet's early history, which has implications for understanding past habitability and the likelihood of discovering life.

The ancient lakebed rocks of Glen Torridon, which is the most chemically varied portion of Gale Crater, were studied by Curiosity between January 2019 and 2021. The first results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets special edition.

NASA's Curiosity Rover Analyzes Most Chemically Diverse Part of Martian Gale Crater

The first examination of the Glen Torridon region in Mars' Gale crater finds that groundwater affected the area's bedrock throughout the planet's early history, which has important implications for understanding past habitability and the chances of finding past life on Mars.

Patrick Gasda, of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Space and Remote Sensing group and lead author on the study, said per SciTechDaily: "The primary reason that the rover was sent to Mars was to investigate this region so we can understand the transition from an early, warm and wet Mars to a cold and dry one."

He went on to say that this region is most likely the latter phases of a wet Mars. As a result, the researchers aim to learn more about lake sediments to provide them with a chronology of events leading up to Mars' climatic change - it was a tremendously dynamic period in the history of Mars.

From January 2019 through January 2021, the NASA Curiosity rover examined the ancient lakebed rocks of the Glen Torridon area. During that period, the rover saw traces of groundwater altering the bedrock, particularly at higher altitudes along the rover's journey. The rover also detected an unusually large number of nodules, veins, and other characteristics associated with bedrock water modification.

The researchers utilized data from the rover's ChemCam instrument, created by Los Alamos and CNES (the French space agency), to capture chemistry and pictures from the rover's four cameras to hunt for physical and chemical changes in the rocks.

According to Gasda, they first saw many dark-toned, spherical "nodules" scattered throughout the rock. He went on to say that these characteristics often originate in the soft sediments found in active lakes on Earth. Thus, it was most likely how the rocks on Mars were formed.

The rover then saw enormous black and white veins with odd chemistry, including dark veins with heavy iron and manganese and lighter veins containing fluorine.

These veins might be linked to additional veins and nodules with perplexing chemistry discovered earlier in the trip around the crater. It's possible that the crater was transformed on a greater scale by groundwater connected to the crater's initial impact.

Groundwater 'Flowed' Through Martian Rocks

Researchers said the groundwater may have flowed through the rocks during the early phases of the crater when the first impact heated the rocks surrounding the crater. They went on to say that hot water removed elements like fluorine from the rocks.

These hydrothermal systems might help scientists learn more about Mars' habitability and prebiotic chemistry.

These systems would transport redox elements (such as iron, nickel, sulfur, and manganese) to Mars' surface, which bacteria would exploit to generate energy. Deep-sea hydrothermal vents on Earth may create hydrogen and methane gas and some more complex organic compounds; these are areas where the fundamental building blocks of life could have been formed on early Earth.

The geology under the crater was likely warmer for longer than experts assumed, which would explain why the groundwater had a greater quantity of elements like fluorine. For a long period after the crater was created, the groundwater might have flowed widely throughout the crater, generating additional veins of variable chemistry.

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