page_title: Composition of Mars
section_title: Sedimentary rocks
hierarchical_section_title: Composition of Mars / Mineralogy and petrology / Sedimentary rocks
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of Huygens crater with a circle that indicates where carbonate has been found.
context_page_description: The composition of Mars covers the branch of the geology of Mars that describes the make-up of the planet Mars.
context_section_description: Layered sedimentary deposits are widespread on Mars. These deposits probably consist of both sedimentary rock and poorly indurated or unconsolidated sediments. Thick sedimentary deposits occur in the interior of several canyons in Valles Marineris, within large craters in Arabia and Meridiani Planum (see Henry Crater for example), and probably comprise much of the deposits in the northern lowlands (e.g., Vastitas Borealis Formation). The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed in an area containing cross-bedded (mainly eolian) sandstones (Burns formation). Fluvial-deltaic deposits are present in Eberswalde Crater and elsewhere, and photogeologic evidence suggests that many craters and low lying intercrater areas in the southern highlands contain Noachian-aged lake sediments.
  While the possibility of carbonates on Mars has been of great interest to exobiologists and geochemists alike, there was little evidence for significant quantities of carbonate deposits on the surface. In the summer of 2008, the TEGA and WCL experiments on the 2007 Phoenix Mars lander found between 3–5wt% (percent by weight) calcite (CaCO₃) and an alkaline soil. In 2010, analyses by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit identified outcrops rich in magnesium-iron carbonate (16–34 wt%) in the Columbia Hills of Gusev crater. The magnesium-iron carbonate most likely precipitated from carbonate-bearing solutions under hydrothermal conditions at near-neutral pH in association with volcanic activity during the Noachian Period.
  Carbonates (calcium or iron carbonates) were discovered in a crater on the rim of Huygens Crater, located in the Iapygia quadrangle. The impact on the rim exposed material that had been dug up from the impact that created Huygens. These minerals represent evidence that Mars once had a thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere with abundant moisture, since these kind of carbonates only form when there is a lot of water. They were found with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Earlier, the instrument had detected clay minerals. The carbonates were found near the clay minerals. Both of these minerals form in wet environments.  It is supposed that billions of years ago Mars was much warmer and wetter. At that time, carbonates would have formed from water and the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Later the deposits of carbonate would have been buried.  The double impact has now exposed the minerals. Earth has vast carbonate deposits in the form of limestone.
caption: Huygens Crater with circle showing place where carbonate was discovered. This deposit may represent a time when Mars had abundant liquid water on its surface. Scale bar is 250 kilometres (160 mi) long.
exif: {}