Acid-Sulfate Alteration at Gusev Crater and Across Mars: High-SiO2 Residues and Ferric Sulfate Precipitates

Abstract: The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit ended its mission in Gusev crater on sol 2210 after it had become stuck in a deposit of fined-grained and sulfate rich soil with dust covered solar panels unfavorably pointed toward the sun. Final analysis of remaining data from Spirit’s Moessbauer spectrometer (Fe redox and mineralogy) for sols 1529 through 2071 is now complete. We focus here on chemical (APXS) and MB data for targets having high-SiO2 or high-SO3 and process link the targets through mixing a…