Annual Report for 2018 Shawn Wright Research Scientist I. Research i.) NASA Award Number: NNX14AP52G Program and Title: Planetary Geology and Geophysics; Alteration Trends in a Full Range of Shocked Basalt: Comparison to Unshocked Basalts and Ejecta Localities from Field and Remote Mapping Many conferences in 2017 and 2018 had special sessions focused on a particular aspect of my work, so my abstract titles (below, in Publications) reflect the scope of that session. For example, “fieldwork” was the focus of a GSA in Pittsburgh, whereas “Analogs for Mars” or “Spectral instruments for Planetary Exploration” were the focus of sessions leading to my GSA-Cordilleran, AGU ’17, AOGS ’18 (Wright, 2018) and AGU ’18 abstracts (Wright et al., 2018).

For an analog session, many complimented my figures (Figure 1) comparing field contacts marked by a GPS unit versus 9-band VIS-NIR remote sensing using the ASTER instrument. This is my early attempt to “close the gap” between field and remote data. Wright was able to do fieldwork at Lonar for a 6th time in Dec ’18 – Feb ‘19. More shocked soil was located in addition to newly-discovered shocked baked zones (Wright, 2018). Wright suggests these are great analogs for Mars Sample Return to tell us about the climate during basaltic emplacement (which will be evident in the baked zone). As described in Figure 1, ejecta lobes corresponding to at least 10 “Alteration Types” were mapped in the Lonar ejecta during fieldwork. Whereas glassy “suevite” is much more rarer than lithic lobes of altered basalt, these were mapped as well. Wright melted some Deccan basalt in a furnace to compare to shocked basalt from Lonar (Wright et al., 2018). Colleagues and Wright collaborated to describe glasses in several wavelength regions (Farrand et al., 2018). A previous grant enabling field trips during MetSoc ’17 enabled colleagues to collect samples one year ago. The early results of sample analyses were published (Harris et al., 2018).

Figure 1. At least 10 categories of altered basalt have been labelled/categorized for this study (see Wright, 2017c), but only one is focused on here and shown in the field on the lower left. The contacts of “Grey Basalt Red Matrix” (GBRM) are shown in red on the 1-m “GoogleMaps” image (middle left) of the west ejecta; the red and blue lines represent Wright’s GPS ‘tracks’ when he walks out an individual ejecta lobe. All other “Alteration Lithologies” are shown as blue. On the right, the aerial extent of this pervasive (in the west ejecta) GBRM unit is shown on a masked ASTER image (water and vegetation are masked out) using the 9-band spectrum of this GBRM unit (upper left). Note the good agreement on the GPS “tracks” and remote image as the largest red ejecta lobe on the high resolution image can be see as a large red region on the ASTER image, and both have blue above and below it, with further red to the south below the blue.

iii.) SSERVI TREX In Year 2, Wright went to the Potrillo volcanic field in southern New Mexico for the 2nd time to view the fieldwork procedures of the SSERVI RIS4E Team and discuss collaboration between TREX and RIS4E. It was decided that TREX will use a thermal infrared (TIR) spectrometer owned by the RIS4E Team, and two graduate students or postdocs from RIS4E will accompany TREX in the field in Year 3. Wright participated on a 3-day GSA field trip to the Palouse loess in southeastern Washington state to view and sample the Palouse loess for TREX studies. Samples were made available to the other members of Theme 4 of TREX. Wright is obtaining TIR, XRF, and XRD data of the loess. Wright mailed the samples to the UV spectral lab at PSI in Tucson to prepare the TREX Tetracorder database for fine-grained loess in the rover scene. Wright has narrowed down potential field sites for the TREX rover using remote sensing, a literature search of previous studies, and ground-truthing by a colleague at Washington State University in Pullman, WA (Noe Dobrea et al., 2018). II. Publications

Peer-reviewed articles:

Farrand, W.H., S.P.Wright, T.D.Glotch, C.Schröder, E.C.Sklute, and M.D.Dyar, Spectroscopic examinations of hydro- and glaciovolcanic basaltic tuffs: Modes of alteration and relevance for Mars, Icarus, Volume 309, 15 July 2018, pp 241-259, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2018.03.005 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103517305080)

Abstracts and extended abstracts: Wright organized and chaired a session at AGU ’18 on the effects of shock on mafic minerals:

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/meetingapp.cgi/Session/50476 Wright, S.P., M.S. Ramsey, and R. Lee (2018), Basaltic glass and alteration mineralogy: Terrestrial impact site analogs, AGU Fall Meeting abstract #P31H-3804. https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/446342 Wright, S.P. (2018) Reconciling Remote Data, Detailed Field Localities, and High Resolution Lab Measurements of Shocked and Unshocked Basaltic Ejecta, Asia Oceania Geosciences Society Annual Meeting, abstract PS22-D2-PM2-304A-010 (PS22-A005).

Noe Dobrea et al., including S.P. Wright (2018) Toolbox for Research and Exploration (TREX): Robotic decision-making in a fine-grained environment, Lun. Plan. Sci Conf 49, #1618. Harris, R.S., S.P. Wright, and S.J. Jaret (2018) Petrography of a lenticular quartz body inside shatterconed schist: Implications for discussions of peak shock pressures at the Santa Fe impact structure, New Mexico, Lun. Plan. Sci. Conf., #2453. III. Awards and Honors Wright was part of a Group Achievement Award given to the Mars Exploration Rover Team. IV. Service to the Science Community Journal reviews for Icarus, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, and JGR-Planets. Wright served on two graduate student thesis/dissertation committees at the University of Pittsburgh and mentored two undergraduates on projects involving basaltic alteration. Wright served as Mineralogy/Chemistry Theme Lead for the Mars Rover Opportunity for one week every two months, until the end of the mission in June, 2018 (dust storm). Wright contributed the field trip guidebook written for the Santa Fe impact structure to a website that hosts references: http://impactcraters.us/santa_fe_new_mexico .

Wright organized and chaired a session at AGU ’18 on the effects of shock on mafic minerals: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/meetingapp.cgi/Session/50476 V. Public Outreach In India, Wright guest lectured in Mumbai at St. Xavier’s College, met geology students and architects/archeologists in Pune and at Lonar Crater, and discussed Mars science with geology students from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay geology department while in Mumbai. He gave a public lecture on Lonar Crater. While in India, Wright met with politicians and some architects proposing to restore 12 Lonar monuments that are 1100 years old. The architects made Wright realize that ancient man (Dravidians) took away all of the largest ~1-meter ejecta blocks to build temples and walls, leaving behind solely ~10 cm samples in the ejecta. Wright also discussed the preservation of Lonar Crater with the politicians, and gently, politely suggested that when the Department of Forest constructed a fence around the ejecta to preserve the ejecta, they actually destroyed the ejecta when they put fence posts in the ground. It was also suggested that a geologist be present in order to collect that sample and data when a fence is constructed, as both are valuable. The Indian government told Wright of plans to construct a train service to Lonar along with a

museum. Local politicians asked Wright to donate well-characterized samples of shocked basalt for a museum display, amongst other ideas Wright has for displays on geologic history (of Lonar), impact cratering around the world, and Lonar Lake water levels. Wright will write accurate descriptions as “captions” with a photomicrograph for each sample.