¹Richard V. Morris et al. (>10)*
Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences (in Press) Link to Article [doi: 10.1073/pnas.1607098113]
¹NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058
*Find the extensive, full author and affiliation list on the publishers website

Tridymite, a low-pressure, high-temperature (>870 °C) SiO2 polymorph, was detected in a drill sample of laminated mudstone (Buckskin) at Marias Pass in Gale crater, Mars, by the Chemistry and Mineralogy X-ray diffraction instrument onboard the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity. The tridymitic mudstone has ∼40 wt.% crystalline and ∼60 wt.% X-ray amorphous material and a bulk composition with ∼74 wt.% SiO2 (Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer analysis). Plagioclase (∼17 wt.% of bulk sample), tridymite (∼14 wt.%), sanidine (∼3 wt.%), cation-deficient magnetite (∼3 wt.%), cristobalite (∼2 wt.%), and anhydrite (∼1 wt.%) are the mudstone crystalline minerals. Amorphous material is silica-rich (∼39 wt.% opal-A and/or high-SiO2 glass and opal-CT), volatile-bearing (16 wt.% mixed cation sulfates, phosphates, and chlorides−perchlorates−chlorates), and has minor TiO2 and Fe2O3T oxides (∼5 wt.%). Rietveld refinement yielded a monoclinic structural model for a well-crystalline tridymite, consistent with high formation temperatures. Terrestrial tridymite is commonly associated with silicic volcanism, and detritus from such volcanism in a “Lake Gale” catchment environment can account for Buckskin’s tridymite, cristobalite, feldspar, and any residual high-SiO2 glass. These cogenetic detrital phases are possibly sourced from the Gale crater wall/rim/central peak. Opaline silica could form during diagenesis from high-SiO2 glass, as amorphous precipitated silica, or as a residue of acidic leaching in the sediment source region or at Marias Pass. The amorphous mixed-cation salts and oxides and possibly the crystalline magnetite (otherwise detrital) are primary precipitates and/or their diagenesis products derived from multiple infiltrations of aqueous solutions having variable compositions, temperatures, and acidities. Anhydrite is post lithification fracture/vein fill.

^1,2B. Schmitz, ³Q. -Z. Yin, ³M. E. Sanborn, ¹M. Tassinari, ²C. E. Caplan, ²G. R. Huss
Nature Communications 7,11851      Link to Article [doi:10.1038/ncomms11851]
¹Astrogeobiology Laboratory, Department of Physics, Lund University, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
²Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
³Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California at Davis, Davis, California 95616, USA

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