Aqueously altered igneous rocks sampled on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, to investigate ancient lake and river deposits. We report observations of the crater floor, below the crater's sedimentary delta, finding the floor consists of igneous rocks altered by water. The lowest exposed unit, informally named Séítah, is a coarsely crystalline olivine-rich rock, which accumulated at the base of a magma body. Fe-Mg carbonates along grain boundaries indicate reactions with CO₂-rich water, under water-poor conditions. Overlying Séítah is a unit informally named Máaz, which we interpret as lava flows or the chemical complement to Séítah in a layered igneous body. Voids in these rocks contain sulfates and perchlorates, likely introduced by later near-surface brine evaporation. Core samples of these rocks were stored aboard Perseverance for potential return to Earth.

Characteristics, Origins, and Biosignature Preservation Potential of Carbonate-Bearing Rocks Within and Outside of Jezero Crater

Carbonate minerals have been detected in Jezero crater, an ancient lake basin that is the landing site of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, and within the regional olivine-bearing (ROB) unit in the Nili Fossae region surrounding this crater. It has been suggested that some carbonates in the margin fractured unit, a rock unit within Jezero crater, formed in a fluviolacustrine environment, which would be conducive to preservation of biosignatures from paleolake-inhabiting lifeforms. Here, we show that carbonate-bearing rocks within and outside of Jezero crater have the same range of visible-to-near-infrared carbonate absorption strengths, carbonate absorption band positions, thermal inertias, and morphologies. Thicknesses of exposed carbonate-bearing rock cross-sections in Jezero crater are ∼75-90 m thicker than typical ROB unit cross-sections in the Nili Fossae region, but have similar thicknesses to ROB unit exposures in Libya Montes. These similarities in carbonate properties within and outside of Jezero crater is consistent with a shared origin for all of the carbonates in the Nili Fossae region. Carbonate absorption minima positions indicate that both Mg- and more Fe-rich carbonates are present in the Nili Fossae region, consistent with the expected products of olivine carbonation. These estimated carbonate chemistries are similar to those in martian meteorites and the Comanche carbonates investigated by the Spirit rover in Columbia Hills. Our results indicate that hydrothermal alteration is the most likely formation mechanism for non-deltaic carbonates within and outside of Jezero crater.