NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Reveals Red Planet Had Primitive, Earth-like Crust

Mars may have just had an Earth-like, primitive continental crust. Researchers have used the ChemCam laser instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover to reveal that the Red Planet has a crust that's surprisingly similar to Earth's granitic continental crust rocks.

"Along the rover's path we have seen some beautiful rocks with large, bright crystals, quite unexpected on Mars," said Roger Wiens, lead scientist on the ChemCam instrument, in a news release. "As a general rule, light-colored crystals are lower density, and these are abundant in igneous rocks that make up the Earth's continents."

Mars has long been viewed as an almost entirely basaltic planet, with igneous rocks that are dark and relatively dense and are similar to those forming the Earth's oceanic crust. Now, though, researchers have found fragments of very ancient igneous rocks that are lighter in color and located in the Gale crater.

The researchers analyzed 22 of these rock fragments. They determined that these pale rocks are rich in feldspar, possibly with some quartz, and they are unexpectedly similar to Earth's granitic continental crust. These primitive Martian crustal components bear a strong resemblance to a terrestrial rock type known to geologists as TTG (Tonalite-Trondjemite-Granodiorite), which are rocks that predominated in the terrestrial continental crust in the Archean era more than 2.5 billion years ago.

The findings reveal a bit more about the history of the Red Planet. More specifically, it reveals that Mars did indeed have a primitive crust that was similar to Earth's.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Related Stories

Opals Discovered on Martian Meteorite May Hint at Alien Life on Mars

DARPA May Create Genetically Modified Organisms to Terraform Mars

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).