Fluvial And Lacustrine Processes On Mars, And Their Relevance To Exploring Mars' Habitability

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The ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover mission [1] will launch in mid-2022, and land in the Oxia Planum [2] region of Mars in June 2023. The goal of Rosalind Franklin is to identify evidence of ancient life in the near shallow subsurface. To complete this goal, Rosalind Franklin will use its PanCam instrument, in concert with orbital remote sensing studies, to explore the geological context of the landing site to select a suitable drilling location.Regional remote sensing studies [3] show that several phases of fluvial activity have influence the landing site. This includes 'recent' (~3.5 Ga) flood deposits, valley networks associated with the sediment fan and more ancient fluvial systems possibly expressed in inverted relief (e.g., [4]). The timing and magnitude of this fluvial activity in Oxia Planum could have driven groundwater fluctuations that may have had a significant impact on preservation of biosignatures in sedimentary materials - key targets for Rosalind Franklin.The aim of this project is to explore the influence of regional fluvial process on the ExoMars landing site and to analyse in situ data returned by the 'PanCam' instrument on the ExoMars rover mission to support orbital analysis.