WorldWide Drilling Resource

Drilling on Mars Reveals Hematite and Boron Adapted from Information by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more commonly known as NASA, has been studying the moun- tains and surface of Mars with its Curiosity rover since 2012. The mission’s main goal is to determine if the Martian environment could sustain microbial life. Although the rover has discovered evidence of how ancient lakes and wet underground environments changed billions of years ago, they have not found out whether life has ever existed on Mars - yet. They have, however, discovered the elements necessary for life. Hematite, clay minerals, and boron are among the ingredients found to be more abundant in layers farther uphill, compared with lower, older layers examined earlier in the mission. Scientists are trying to figure out what these and other variations mean about the conditions when the sediments were initially deposited, and how groundwater moving through the accumulated layers altered and transported them. Groundwater movement is apparent in the mineral veins which form where cracks in the sediment layers become filled with chemicals which have been dissolved in groundwater. It is also obvious the water, with its dissolved contents, interacted with the rocks surrounding the veins, altering the chemistry both in the rock and water. "There is so much variability in the composition at different elevations, we've hit a jackpot," said John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, California. As the rover examines higher, younger layers, researchers are impressed by the complexity of the lake environments when clay-bearing sediments were being deposited, and also the complexity of the groundwater interactions after the sediments were buried. Gale Crater's main appeal is geological layering exposed in the lower portion of its central mound, Mount Sharp. These layers offer access to rocks holding an environmental record of conditions during different stages of the planet’s history, each layer younger than the one beneath it. The mission has already discovered an ancient Martian lake environment with all the key chemical ingre- dients needed for life, plus chemical energy available for life. Now, the rover is climbing lower on Mount Sharp to investigate how ancient environmental conditions changed over time. Photo of the strata at the base of Mount Sharp courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. Drilling on Mars cont’d on page 24. 17 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® JUNE 2017