¹O.Beyssac et al. (>10)
Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets) (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JE007638]
¹Institut de Minéralogie, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, de Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie, 75005 Paris, France
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

Séítah is the stratigraphically lowest formation visited by Perseverance in the Jezero crater floor. We present the data obtained by SuperCam: texture by imagery, chemistry by LIBS, and mineralogy by VISIR and Raman spectroscopy. The Séítah formation consists of igneous, weakly altered, rocks dominated by millimeter-size grains of olivine with the presence of low-Ca and high-Ca pyroxenes, and other primary minerals (e.g., plagioclase, Cr-Fe-Ti oxides, phosphates). Along a ∼140 m long section in Séítah, SuperCam analyses showed evidence of geochemical and mineralogical variations, from the contact with the overlying Máaz formation, going deeper in the formation. Bulk rock and olivine Mg#, grain size, olivine content increase gradually further from the contact. Along the section, olivine Mg# are not in equilibrium with the bulk rock Mg#, indicating local olivine accumulation. These observations are consistent with Séítah being the deep ultramafic member of a cumulate series derived from the fractional crystallization and slow cooling of the parent magma at depth. Possible magmatic processes and exhumation mechanisms of Séítah are discussed. Séítah rocks show some affinity with some rocks at Gusev crater, and with some martian meteorites suggesting that such rocks are not rare on the surface of Mars. Séítah is part of the Nili Fossae regional olivine-carbonate unit observed from orbit. Future exploration of Perseverance on the rim and outside of the crater will help determine if the observations from the crater floor can be extrapolated to the whole unit, or if this unit is composed of distinct sub-units with various origins.

¹Vivian Z. Sun et al. (>10)
Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets) (in Press) Open Access Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JE007613]
¹Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021. After a 100-sol period of commissioning and the Ingenuity Helicopter technology demonstration, Perseverance began its first science campaign to explore the enigmatic Jezero crater floor, whose igneous or sedimentary origins have been much debated in the scientific community. This paper describes the campaign plan developed to explore the crater floor’s Máaz and Séítah formations and summarizes the results of the campaign between sols 100-379. By the end of the campaign, Perseverance had traversed more than 5 km, created seven abrasion patches, and sealed nine samples and a witness tube. Analysis of remote and proximity science observations show that the Máaz and Séítah formations are igneous in origin and composed of five and two geologic members, respectively. The Séítah formation represents the olivine-rich cumulate formed from differentiation of a slowly cooling melt or magma body, and the Máaz formation likely represents a separate series of lava flows emplaced after Séítah. The Máaz and Séítah rocks also preserve evidence of multiple episodes of aqueous alteration in secondary minerals like carbonate, Fe/Mg phyllosilicates, sulfates, and perchlorate, and surficial coatings. Post-emplacement processes tilted the rocks near the Máaz-Séítah contact and substantial erosion modified the crater floor rocks to their present-day expressions. Results from this crater floor campaign, including those obtained upon return of the collected samples, will help to build the geologic history of events that occurred in Jezero crater and provide time constraints on the formation of the Jezero delta.