File:PIA21500-Mars-GaleCrater-LakeStratification.png

Size of this preview: 799 × 286 pixels. Other resolutions: 320 × 115 pixels | 640 × 229 pixels | 1,024 × 367 pixels | 2,692 × 964 pixels.

Original file ‎(2,692 × 964 pixels, file size: 95 KB, MIME type: image/png)

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below.
Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. You can help.

Summary

Description	English: PIA21500: Diagram of Lake Stratification on Mars https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21500 This diagram presents some of the processes and clues related to a long-ago lake on Mars that became stratified, with the shallow water richer in oxidants than deeper water was. The sedimentary rocks deposited within a lake in Mars' Gale Crater more than three billion years ago differ from each other in a pattern that matches what is seen in lakes on Earth. As sediment-bearing water flows into a lake, bedding thickness and particle size progressively decrease as sediment is deposited in deeper and deeper water as seen in examples of thick beds (PIA19074) from shallowest water, thin beds (PIA19075) from deeper water and even thinner beds (PIA19828) from deepest water. At sites on lower Mount Sharp, inside the crater, measurements of chemical and mineral composition by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover reveal a clear correspondence between the physical characteristics of sedimentary rock from different parts of the lake and how strongly oxidized the sediments were. Rocks with textures indicating that the sediments were deposited near the edge of a lake have more strongly oxidized composition than rocks with textures indicating sedimentation in deep water. For example, the iron mineral hematite is more oxidized than the iron mineral magnetite. An explanation for why such chemical stratification occurs in a lake is that the water closer to the surface is more exposed to oxidizing effects of oxygen in the atmosphere and ultraviolet light. On Earth, a stratified lake with a distinct boundary between oxidant-rich shallows and oxidant-poor depths provides a diversity of environments suited to different types of microbes. If Mars has ever hosted microbial live, the stratified lake at Gale Crater may have similarly provided a range of different habitats for life. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's Mastcam. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.
Date	1 June 2017
Source	https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA21500.jpg
Author	NASA/JPL-Caltech/Stony Brook University

This image or video was catalogued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: PIA21500.

This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.

Other languages:

العربية ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ български ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ فارسی ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ magyar ∙ հայերեն ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Nederlands ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−

Licensing

	This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
	Warnings: Use of NASA logos, insignia and emblems is restricted per U.S. law 14 CFR 1221. The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not necessarily in the public domain. Materials based on Hubble Space Telescope data may be copyrighted if they are not explicitly produced by the STScI.[1] See also {{PD-Hubble}} and {{Cc-Hubble}}. The SOHO (ESA & NASA) joint project implies that all materials created by its probe are copyrighted and require permission for commercial non-educational use. [2] Images featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) web site may be copyrighted. [3] The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) site has been known to host copyrighted content. Its photo gallery FAQ states that all of the images in the photo gallery are in the public domain "Unless otherwise noted."

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

	Date/Time	Dimensions	User	Comment
current	19:35, 17 October 2021	2,692 × 964 (95 KB)	Cherurbino	cropped white space from sides
	18:34, 17 October 2021	2,858 × 1,213 (98 KB)	Cherurbino	same size, smaller weight
	20:08, 1 June 2017	2,858 × 1,213 (593 KB)	Drbogdan	User created page with UploadWizard