Imperial College London
Professor Sanjeev Gupta

ProfessorSanjeevGupta

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Professor of Earth Science
 
 
 
//

Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 6527s.gupta

 
 
//

Location

 

Royal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

//

Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Stack:2019:10.1111/sed.12558,
author = {Stack, KM and Grotzinger, JP and Lamb, MP and Gupta, S and Rubin, DM and Kah, LC and Edgar, LA and Fey, DM and Hurowitz, JA and McBride, M and Rivera-Hernández, F and Sumner, DY and Van, Beek JK and Williams, RME and Aileen, Yingst R},
doi = {10.1111/sed.12558},
journal = {Sedimentology},
pages = {1768--1802},
title = {Evidence for plunging river plume deposits in the Pahrump Hills member of the Murray formation, Gale crater, Mars},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sed.12558},
volume = {65},
year = {2019}
}
Download

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Recent 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 finegrained 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 subdivided into four distinct sedimentary facies: (i) thinly laminated mudstone; (ii) lowangle crossstratified mudstone; (iii) crossstratified sandstone; and (iv) thickly laminated mudstone–sandstone. The very fine grain size of the mudstone facies and abundant millimetrescale and submillimetrescale laminations exhibiting quasiuniform thickness throughout the Pahrump Hills succession are most consistent with lacustrine deposition. Lowangle 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 rivergenerated 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 fluvialdeltaic 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 dep
AU  - Stack,KM
AU  - Grotzinger,JP
AU  - Lamb,MP
AU  - Gupta,S
AU  - Rubin,DM
AU  - Kah,LC
AU  - Edgar,LA
AU  - Fey,DM
AU  - Hurowitz,JA
AU  - McBride,M
AU  - Rivera-Hernández,F
AU  - Sumner,DY
AU  - Van,Beek JK
AU  - Williams,RME
AU  - Aileen,Yingst R
DO  - 10.1111/sed.12558
EP  - 1802
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 0037-0746
SP  - 1768
TI  - Evidence for plunging river plume deposits in the Pahrump Hills member of the Murray formation, Gale crater, Mars
T2  - Sedimentology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sed.12558
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/71198
VL  - 65
ER  -
Download