New Rock Types from Mars: Trace Element Signatures in Nwa 7034 Clasts

Trace Element Geochemistry of New Nakhlites from the Antarctic and the Saharan Desert: Further Constraints on Nakhlite Petrogenesis on Mars

Introduction: Although numerous new meteorites of purported martian origin have been found in recent years, most of these have been classified as belonging to the shergottite type. In fact, of the approximately two dozen meteorites thought to have originated on Mars, ~70% are shergottite basalts. Therefore, the recent finds of two paired nakhlites from the Antarctic (Y000593 and Y000749) [1] an...

Unique meteorite from early Amazonian Mars: water-rich basaltic breccia Northwest Africa 7034.

We report data on the martian meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, which shares some petrologic and geochemical characteristics with known martian meteorites of the SNC (i.e., shergottite, nakhlite, and chassignite) group, but also has some unique characteristics that would exclude it from that group. NWA 7034 is a geochemically enriched crustal rock compositionally similar to basalts and ave...

The Mantle, Crust and Atmosphere of Mars as Illuminated by the Light Element Geochemistry of Nwa 7034

Evidence for a widespread basaltic breccia component in the martian low-albedo regions from the reflectance spectrum of Northwest Africa 7034

Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 is the first breccia meteorite from Mars, and unlike the shergottite, nakhlite, and chassignite (SNC) martian meteorites, it matches the estimated chemical composition of martian crust. Here we show that the visible-infrared reflectance spectrum of NWA 7034 is unique compared to other SNCs and is more similar than them to remotely sensed data from Mars, suggesting th...

A new lunar high-Ti basalt type defined from clasts in Apollo 16 breccia 60639

This paper reports the detailed examination of three basalt clasts from Apollo 16 breccia 60639 that represent a new variant of high-Ti basalt returned from the Moon by the Apollo 16 mission. Mineral chemistry and whole-rock analyses were conducted on aliquots from three clasts (breccia matrix, basalt, and basalt + breccia matrix). The basalt clasts, which are not overtly porphyritic, contain c...