Untangling Source-To-Sink Geochemical Signals in a ~3.5 Ga Martian Lake: Sedimentology and Geochemistry of the Murray Formation

Abstract

Sedimentary rocks are historical archives of planetary surface processes; their grains, textures, and chemistry integrate the effects of source terrains, paleoclimatic conditions, weathering and transport processes, authigenic mineral precipitation, and diagenesis, which records groundwater chemistry through time. Source to Sink basin analysis seeks to constrain the influence of each of these different signals through sedimentary and geochemical analyses. Here, we use Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover images and geochemical and mineralogical data from a traverse across a portion of the Murray formationthe lowermost unit exposed in the Gale crater central moundto begin to constrain the aspects of the source to sink system that formed this Martian mudstone between 3.7 and 3.2 Ga