Many regions of the martian highlands contain vast, flat-lying exposures of BEDROCK of uncertain origin. These BEDROCK units hold broad significance for understanding noachian terrains and processes…

This is a $444,825.32 grant awarded by the NASA Shared Services Center to the Research Foundation for the State University of New York, doing business as Stony Brook University. The grant is for research to better understand the formation, preservation, and exposure of bedrock units in the Martian highlands. The research aims to investigate the roles of burial, exhumation, wind erosion, and material strength in giving rise to the current spatial distribution of bedrock on Mars. The research will use a combination of spectral, thermophysical, and morphological mapping, crater statistics analysis, and atmospheric modeling. The grant has a period of performance through July 1, 2023 and does not have any set-aside designation.

Many regions of the martian highlands contain vast, flat-lying exposures of BEDROCK of uncertain origin. These BEDROCK units hold broad significance for understanding noachian terrains and processes because they are widespread and physicochemically distinctive; yet presently they are not well understood. A number of fundamental questions remain about how and when these intact units were formed, modified, preserved and exposed. In addition, many of these BEDROCK exposures have full or partial spatial correspondence with late noachian highland (LNH) units mapped by irwin ET AL. (2013) and tanaka ET AL. (2014). However, more LNH units lack high thermal inertia (BEDROCK) exposures. Is the variability in the presence/absence of BEDROCK among LNH units due to spatial differences in the style of LN resurfacing? Or did most LNH units form in a similar manner, but are in a varying states of exposure? In this work, we focus on better constraining some of the key variables (wind erosion, burial events, and material strength) that affect interpretations of BEDROCK origin(S), preservation and exposure. Through a combination of spectral, thermophysical and morphological mapping, crater statistics, and global/mesoscale atmospheric modeling efforts, we will investigate the roles of burial/ exhumation, deflation, and material strength (which is linked to BEDROCK origin) in giving rise to the present-day spatial distribution of BEDROCK in the martian highlands. Specifically, we will address the following questions: 1. Is there morphological or compositional evidence for how BEDROCK exposures were preserved and exposed? 2. Why do some LNH surfaces lack high thermal inertia exposures? Do they represent (a) late noachian crustal resurfacing by a process that is distinct from that where higher-TI exposures are found, (B) olivine BEDROCK that has experienced less regolith deflation, or (C) thin/patchily mantled olivine BEDROCK that has not been fully exhumed? 3. Are there differences in the timing and magnitude of near surface processes that modified each terrain unit? How does the size frequency distribution of smaller