Evidence for plunging river plume deposits in the Pahrump Hills member of the Murray formation, Gale crater, Mars

AbstractRecent robotic missions to Mars have offered new insights into the extent, diversity and habitability of the Martian sedimentary rock record. Since the Curiosity rover landed in Gale crater in August 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory Science Team has explored the origins and habitability of ancient fluvial, deltaic, lacustrine and aeolian deposits preserved within the crater. This study describes the sedimentology of a ca 13 m thick succession named the Pahrump Hills member of the Murray formation, the first thick fine‐grained deposit discovered in situ on Mars. This work evaluates the depositional processes responsible for its formation and reconstructs its palaeoenvironmental setting. The Pahrump Hills succession can be sub‐divided into four distinct sedimentary facies: (i) thinly laminated mudstone; (ii) low‐angle cross‐stratified mudstone; (iii) cross‐stratified sandstone; and (iv) thickly laminated mudstone–sandstone. The very fine grain size of the mudstone facies and abundant millimetre‐scale and sub‐millimetre‐scale laminations exhibiting quasi‐uniform thickness throughout the Pahrump Hills succession are most consistent with lacustrine deposition. Low‐angle geometric discordances in the mudstone facies are interpreted as ‘scour and drape’ structures and suggest the action of currents, such as those associated with hyperpycnal river‐generated plumes plunging into a lake. Observation of an overall upward coarsening in grain size and thickening of laminae throughout the Pahrump Hills succession is consistent with deposition from basinward progradation of a fluvial‐deltaic system derived from the northern crater rim into the Gale crater lake. Palaeohydraulic modelling constrains the salinity of the ancient lake in Gale crater: assuming river sediment concentrations typical of floods on Earth, plunging river plumes and sedimentary structures like those observed at Pahrump Hills would have required lake densities near freshwater to form. The depositional model for the Pahrump Hills member presented here implies the presence of an ancient sustained, habitable freshwater lake in Gale crater for at least ca 103 to 107 Earth years.

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Details

Published: Feb 18, 2019
Vol/Issue: 66(5)
Pages: 1768-1802
License: View

Authors

K

K. M. Stack

Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena CA 91109 USA

J

J. Grotzinger

California Institute of Technology 1200 East California Boulevard Pasadena CA 91125 USA

M

Michael P. Lamb

California Institute of Technology 1200 East California Boulevard Pasadena CA 91125 USA

S

Sanjeev Gupta

Imperial College London Kensington London SW7 2AZ UK

D

David M. Rubin

University of California Santa Cruz 1156 High Street Santa Cruz CA 95064 USA

L

L. C. Kah

University of Tennessee 1621 Cumberland Avenue Knoxville TN 37996 USA

L

L. A. Edgar

USGS Astrogeology Science Center 2255 N. Gemini Drive Flagstaff AZ 86001 USA

D

Deirdra Fey

Malin Space Science Systems 5880 Pacific Center Boulevard San Diego CA 92121 USA

J

Joel A. Hurowitz

Stony Brook University 100 Nicolls Road Stony Brook NY 11794 USA

M

Marie McBride

Purdue University 550 Stadium Mall Drive West Lafayette IN 47907 USA

F

F. Rivera‐Hernández

Dartmouth College 6105 Fairchild Hall Hanover NH 03755 USA

D

Dawn Y. Sumner

UC Davis 1 Shields Avenue Davis CA 95616 USA

J

Jason K. Van Beek

Malin Space Science Systems 5880 Pacific Center Boulevard San Diego CA 92121 USA

R

Rebecca M. E. Williams

Planetary Science Institute 1700 E. Lowell, Suite 106 Tucson AZ 85719 USA

R

Robin Aileen Yingst

Planetary Science Institute 1700 E. Lowell, Suite 106 Tucson AZ 85719 USA

Funding

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

UK Space Agency Award: ST/J005169/1

Cite This Article

K. M. Stack, J. Grotzinger, Michael P. Lamb, et al. (2019). Evidence for plunging river plume deposits in the Pahrump Hills member of the Murray formation, Gale crater, Mars. Sedimentology, 66(5), 1768-1802. https://doi.org/10.1111/sed.12558

Evidence for plunging river plume deposits in the Pahrump Hills member of the Murray formation, Gale crater, Mars

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