It is amazing what they learned from my 2.4 billion-year-old rock from the early Amazonian period of Mars.
Here is the original Science Advances paper. and Purdue’s summary — Monster Martian volcano unlike anything on Earth:
“Analysis of NWA 7635 has helped determine that during its 4.5 billion-year history, Mars had a single volcano that erupted continuously for more than 2 billion years.
We don’t have anything like that on Earth, where something is that stable for 2 billion years at a specific location. Mars is known for the most magnificent volcanoes in the Solar System. Olympus Mons is nearly 17 miles high with a footprint the size of Arizona. That’s almost triple the height of Earth’s tallest volcano, Mauna Kea.
Martian volcanoes can grow to such enormous proportions because, unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have plate tectonics that constantly shuffle the surface. So a volcano, like the one that birthed NWA 7635, can plume for billions of years.
“These meteorites are allowing us to conduct geologic science on the surface of Mars, and we haven’t even been there yet,” Prof. Caffee said.”
History: 2.4 billon years old. “This early Amazonian age is about 1.8 billion years older than that of any other recognized shergottite, whose ages fall into the middle-to-late Amazonian epoch in Mars’ geologic history.” Ejected from Mars by meteor strike 1.1 million years ago. Landed in Algeria more recently and fusion crust eroded away from shifting sands in the Sahara Desert. Discovered in 2012. 56.7g individual stone.
Details: “The First Depleted, Highly Ferroan and Phosphate-Free Evolved Olivine-Plagioclase-Phyric Shergottite. We describe the most magmatically evolved depleted shergottite yet discovered. It is the first known specimen containing maskelynite phenocrysts but apparently lacks phosphates.”
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