Planetary studies can spark the imagination. We want to go to Mars. Humans have dreamed of going to another planet and looking for life throughout the ages. We want to better understand the nature of the Solar System and we want to know if we're alone.
Published in AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
During its first two years of exploration, Curiosity rover provided strong evidence of water activity at Gale Crater on Mars. While liquid water is not commonly present on the surface of Mars, large depressions such as Gale Crater hold evidence that water was collected in impact craters on Mars in the distant past. Specific features such as alluvia...
Published in 2014 GSA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia
We present here novel results from a set of multi-component investigations to characterize intra-crater clay-rich sediments in relation to surface hydroclimatic conditions (2009-current) at Ubehebe Volcanic Field (UVF) in Death Valley National Park. The UVF (~ 15 Km 2) includes a dozen craters formed during hydro magmatic explosions occurred someti...
Curiosity s Mastcam and MAHLI instruments in Gale Crater (GC) imaged mm-sized circular rimmed hollow nodules (HNs)(Figure 1A), pitting the Sheepbed mudstone of Yellowknife Bay Formation [1, 2]. HNs are significantly smaller than the solid nodules within the outcrop, with an external mean diameter of 1.2 mm and an interior one of 0.7 mm [2] Several ...
We explore the feasibility of using Raman imaging as a technique for identifying areas of high astrobiological interest on Mars-like surfaces. This paper will discuss the technique, analysis, and possible deployment of rover mounted instrumentation for identifying biogenic samples from Mars analog environments, such as the Mojave Desert and Lassen ...
