A new assessment of the depositional record at Kimberley (Gale crater, Mars) using Virtual Reality

Gwénaël Caravaca (1) , Nicolas Mangold (1) , Stéphane Le Mouélic (1) , Laetitia Le Deit (1) , Marion Massé (1)

1 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique [UMR 6112]

Since 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has studied the sedimentary record of the Gale Crater. This work focuses on the sedimentary record of the Kimberley outcrop, traversed by Curiosity between sols 603 and 630. This section presents siliciclastic rocks with anunusually high potassic content (Le Deit et al., JGR-Planets, 2016). However, poorly constrained stratigraphic relations between the series of the Kimberley Formation and their local to regional surroundings prevent further understanding of the exact extent of these accumulations andtheir significance within the broader Gale Crater paleoenvironmental scheme. Such questions highlight the need for a new finer mapping of the area to notably characterize the precise nature and morphology of the sedimentary structures and contacts observed on the outcrop itself and in its immediate vicinity. We therefore propose to use a true color highly resolved (up to the mm-scale) Digital Outcrop Model (DOM) of the Kimberley outcrop, obtained using Mars Science Laboratory imagery, integrated into a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. Taking advantage of purposely-developed measurement tools dedicated to the VR exploration and “in situ” geological analysis of DOM, we were able to observe and characterize such sedimentary structures and contacts, as well as their spatial extension throughout the reconstructed area of Kimberley.This new edge technique allows us to observe and describe with unprecedented precision both conformable and unconformable contacts, and several set of varying scale cross-stratifications (from cm- to pluri-meter scale). These results tend to corroborate the idea of a complex anddiachroneous evolution of the area, with the possibility of laterally evolving depositional settings, spanning a significant amount of time.Newly developed tools in Virtual Reality therefore give us the opportunity to study “in situ” digital reconstructions of Martian outcrops such as Kimberley and represent a major advance for the characterization and interpretation of remote planetary past paleoenvironments.

Mots clés: geological mapping; Kimberley; stratigraphy; Digital Outcrop Model; Virtual Reality; Gale crater; Mars

Domaines: Stratigraphie; Sciences de la Terre; Planétologie

Gwénaël Caravaca, Nicolas Mangold, Stéphane Le Mouélic, Laetitia Le Deit, Marion Massé. A new assessment of the depositional record at Kimberley (Gale crater, Mars) using Virtual Reality. 34th IAS International Meeting of Sedimentology, Sep 2019, Rome, Italy. ⟨10.13140/RG.2.2.14403.35367⟩. ⟨hal-02882315⟩