HGS General Dinner Meeting "The path to Gale and Jezero craters-the role of terrestrial field work in selecting landing sites on Mars and interpreting the resulting observations" with Kevin Bohacs

HGS General Dinner Meeting

"The path to Gale and Jezero craters-the role of terrestrial field work in selecting landing sites on Mars and interpreting the resulting observations" with Kevin Bohacs

Date: March 10, 2025

Place: Norris Conference Center, Beltway 8 and I1-10 Houston

Time: 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm

Cost: Students: $40| HGS Members: $65 | Non-members: $75

The Mars Science Laboratory on the Curiosity rover has accomplished most of the mission objectives assigned to this robot geologist (including evidence of ancient conditions quite conducive for microbial life). Essential to this success was choosing an appropriate field area based on remote sensing data. Predictive tools and detailed analogues developed during decades of field work on Earth provided robust guidance for selecting the landing site for the Curiosity rover and pinpointing outcrops to address specific mission objectives.

We'll discuss how our expeditions on rocks up to one billion years old across six continents generated tools for pre-landing prediction and post-landing interpretation of analyses within geological context. In particular, our lake-basin-type classification serves as a powerful framework for analyzing Mars paleolakes and interpreting the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers' observations. Results confirm pre-landing predictions and point to promising things to come.

As an added bonus, come and see the sequence-stratigraphic interpretation of the first detailed stratigraphic column and cross sections from another planet-another illustration of how geological techniques based on first principles apply across our solar system. 

Kevin Bohacs