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Something New Found on Mars [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-20  

The intrepid little Mars rover Perseverance was making its way across the Martian landscape when it came across this remarkable scene recently as detailed by JPL:

Close-up of mystery rock

Virtually all of the rocks on Mars encountered thus far have either been your run-of-the mill dark grey to black volcanic basalts, or the lighter colored sedimentary carbonate rocks in the ancient lake bed the rover is currently exploring (Jezero Crater). This rock is totally unlike either, and if our current understanding of Mars' apparent lack of convection-driven plate tectonics is correct, it really shouldn't exist.

According to Perseverance's instrumental analysis, the whitish matrix material seems to be mainly plagioclase feldspar and the much darker crystals are mostly pyroxenes. But to these old geologist's eyes, this rock looks amazingly like a common continental rock here on Earth, granodiorite -- a type of rock that simply shouldn't be there on Mars.

Martian geology and geological history just got a lot more interesting!

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