291-6 Additional Mineral Phases at CheMin localities in Gale Crater Predicted from Association Rule Mining

Session: Mineralogy in the Solar System

Presenting Author:

Kate Hendrickson

Authors:

Hendrickson, Kate¹, Yee, Forest², Prabhu, Anirudh³, Sheppard, Rachel⁴, Hazen, Robert M.⁵, Jibrin, Zakaria⁶, Rampe, Elizabeth B.⁷, Thorpe, Michael T.⁸, Morrison, Shaunna M.⁹

(1) Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, (2) Trinity School, Hoboken, NJ, USA, (3) Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth and Planets Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA, (4) Planetary Science Institute, Tuscon, AZ, USA; Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France, (5) Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth and Planets Laboratory, Washington, D.C., USA, (6) Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, (7) National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA, (8) National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA, (9) Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA,

Abstract:

In this study, Mineral Association Analysis was used to predict occurrences of 70 mineral phases across Gale crater drill and scoop samples using historical mineral patterns in the Mineral Evolution Database. These phases include hydrated minerals that speak to the water history of Mars, several sulfides that could support a period of hydrothermal activity in Gale crater, and mineral phases that imply a possible history of metamorphism at modest pressure. MAA produced more possible locations for minerals already detected by the CheMin instrument as well as scores of other mineral phases not currently identified by the CheMin instrument. Not all these predictions guarantee the presence of the predicted mineral and some phases are likely the result of model bias, as our model is based on mineral localities in the United States. Although this version of the model is based on Earth data, it provides a launch point for considering possible additional mineral phases present at each of the CheMin drill hole sites. Some of these phases support water history that was of varying acidity (acidic: jarosite, kaolinite, marcasite, melanterite; alkaline: carbonates), S, Si, Fe, and Ca rich (gypsum, melanterite, sulfur, opal, hematite, magnetite, fluorite, calcite), of varying redox (oxidized: hematite, goethite, baryte, gypsum; reduced: ilmenite, siderite, pyrite, and other sulfides), hydrothermal (talc, sulfides, and phyllosilicates), and potentially accompanied by low-grade pressure or contact metamorphism (clinochlore, wollastonite, micas, actinolite, epidote). We conclude that with careful consideration of model biases, the predictions from MAA provide additional insights to the mineral diversity and geologic history of Gale crater.

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