# Presentation: 352589

## MER 2003 Landing Sites– Impact Crater Lake and Hydrothermal Deposits

**Horton Newsom,**
**Charles Barber, Ivan Thorsos**
**Institute of Meteoritics, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico**
**and Ashley Davies, Jet Propulsion Laboratory**

## Method

**Determine craters that could contribute material to the landing sites.**
**Obtain crater diameters using GIS. **
**Determine hydrothermal potential for candidate craters.**
**For superimposed craters calculate ejecta contributions to landing site ellipses.**
**Determine fluvial contributions to landing site ellipses if applicable.**

## Slide 3

## Hydrothermal deposits in Gusev

**Thyra 21 km diam., melt - 140 km****3**** Gusev heat equivalent to 57 times Yellowstone over 15,000 years**
**Ellipse contains Gusev rim material ejected from large superimposed craters including Thyra (but material is probably buried).**
**Hydrothermal deposits are probably exposed on the rim of Thyra, inside of ellipse. **
**Gusev rim material was probably transported to the ellipse by late fluvial processes.**

**Hydrothermal deposits in Gusev**

## Fluvial transport from rim of Gusev and Thyra

**MOLA**
**Shaded**
**Relief**

**Thyra**

**Fluvial transport from rim of Gusev and Thyra**

## Transport of Material from Thyra to MER Landing Site

**Distance from center of landing site to Thyra’s rim is only 21 km.**
**Greater than 200 meter difference in elevation from the rim of Thyra down to the landing site allows for possible fluvial transport of material.**

## Hematite site

**Hematite site**

## MOLA

**MOLA**
**Shaded**
**Relief**

**Edge of hematite layer**

## Ejecta transport

**Viking**
**MDIM**

**Ejecta transport**

**Superimposed 19 km diam. crater H4 excavates from 2 km depth**

## Edge of ellipse

**MOC Wide Angle**

**Edge of ellipse**

**Edge of visible ejecta**

**Churning of surface by distal ejecta reveals hematite signature**

## Hydrothermal deposits in Hematite site

**Center of ellipse contains 20 to 40 cm of ejecta from superimposed 19 km diam. H5, including: **
**Impact melt from H4**
**Lake deposits in H4 (gravity -75 mgal, Yuan)**
**H4 rim material transported to H5 site by earlier superimposed craters.**

**Hydrothermal deposits in Hematite site**

## Isidis landing site: upstream craters

**IS1 Crater**
**60 km diam.**
**500 km****3 ****impact melt**
**3 Yellowstone heat equivalents**

- Courtesy L. Crumpler

## Conclusions – Lacustrine and Hydrothermal deposits

**Lacustrine: **
**Gusev (most likely)  in surface layers**
**Hematite site- in ejecta blanket of 19 km crater?**
**Isidis - very unlikely**

**Hydrothermal:**
**Hematite site (most likely) in ejecta blanket of 19 km crater**
**Gusev – on rim of Thyra and in fluvial deposits**
**Isidis – in fluvial deposits?**

## TES Thermal Inertia on Geolines

- Sept. 17, 2001

**TES Thermal Inertia on Geolines**

**Notes:**
This is the end of a long sequence of slides in which I discuss the TES data. Bottom line here is that the high thermal inertia and moderate fc TI suggest that these area are rocky with well-indurated sediments between the rocks..........conglomeratic, somewhat like the bajada off the Sandias....    These blobs of hi TI are located at the terminii of the main valleys as determined from my geologic map!!