Seminar of Elise Clavé

Abstract:

Since February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover has explored some of the most carbonate-rich terrains identified from orbit on the surface of Mars, in and around the Jezero crater. Terrains of different natures (sedimentary, igneous), ages (some as old as 3.8 Gy or more) and alteration states were investigated by the rover using the different scientific instruments of its payload. Among these, the SuperCam instrument enables remote multi-technique analysis of rocks around the rover, typically 2-8 m away, characterizing their texture, chemistry and mineralogy.

I’ll present the carbonates identified with SuperCam over the first 1200 Martian days (sols) of the mission, their context and characteristics, and what they tell us about past aqueous activity on the surface of Mars.