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Science 3 December 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5702, pp. 1698 - 1703
DOI: 10.1126/science.1106171
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Research Articles

The Opportunity Rover's Athena Science Investigation at Meridiani Planum, Mars

S. W. Squyres,1* R. E. Arvidson,2 J. F. Bell, III,1 J. Brückner,3 N. A. Cabrol,4 W. Calvin,5 M. H. Carr,6 P. R. Christensen,7 B. C. Clark,8 L. Crumpler,9 D. J. Des Marais,10 C. d'Uston,11 T. Economou,12 J. Farmer,7 W. Farrand,13 W. Folkner,14 M. Golombek,14 S. Gorevan,15 J. A. Grant,16 R. Greeley,7 J. Grotzinger,17 L. Haskin,2 K. E. Herkenhoff,18 S. Hviid,19 J. Johnson,18 G. Klingelhöfer,20 A. H. Knoll,21 G. Landis,22 M. Lemmon,23 R. Li,24 M. B. Madsen,25 M. C. Malin,26 S. M. McLennan,27 H. Y. McSween,28 D. W. Ming,29 J. Moersch,28 R. V. Morris,29 T. Parker,14 J. W. Rice, Jr.,7 L. Richter,30 R. Rieder,3 M. Sims,10 M. Smith,31 P. Smith,32 L. A. Soderblom,18 R. Sullivan,1 H. Wänke,3 T. Wdowiak,33 M. Wolff,34 A. Yen14

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has investigated the landing site in Eagle crater and the nearby plains within Meridiani Planum. The soils consist of fine-grained basaltic sand and a surface lag of hematite-rich spherules, spherule fragments, and other granules. Wind ripples are common. Underlying the thin soil layer, and exposed within small impact craters and troughs, are flat-lying sedimentary rocks. These rocks are finely laminated, are rich in sulfur, and contain abundant sulfate salts. Small-scale cross-lamination in some locations provides evidence for deposition in flowing liquid water. We interpret the rocks to be a mixture of chemical and siliciclastic sediments formed by episodic inundation by shallow surface water, followed by evaporation, exposure, and desiccation. Hematite-rich spherules are embedded in the rock and eroding from them. We interpret these spherules to be concretions formed by postdepositional diagenesis, again involving liquid water.

1 Department of Astronomy, Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
2 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
3 Max Planck Institut für Chemie, Kosmochemie, Mainz, Germany.
4 NASA Ames Research Center/SETI Institute, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
5 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA.
6 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
7 Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
8 Lockheed Martin Corporation, Littleton, CO 80127, USA.
9 New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, NM 87104, USA.
10 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
11 Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France.
12 Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
13 Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO 80301, USA.
14 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
15 Honeybee Robotics, New York, NY 10012, USA.
16 Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
17 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
18 U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA.
19 Max Planck Institut für Aeronomie, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.
20 Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany.
21 Botanical Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138, USA.
22 NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH 44135, USA.
23 Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
24 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
25 Niels Bohr Institute, Ørsted Laboratory, Copenhagen, Denmark.
26 Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, CA 92191, USA.
27 Department of Geosciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
28 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
29 NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
30 DLR Institute of Space Simulation, Cologne, Germany.
31 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
32 Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
33 Department of Physics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
34 Space Science Institute, Martinez, GA 30907, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: squyres{at}astro.cornell.edu

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