Estudio espectroscópico y DRX de afloramientos terrestres volcánicos en la isla de Tenerife como posibles análogos de la geología marciana

Abstract

Several volcanic outcrops from Tenerife Island (Las Canadas Caldera, historical volcanism and Gu.imar-Malpais outcrop) has been selected as a potential terrestrial analog for Mars, regarding the Martian mineralogy and its volcanic characteristic. Diverse alteration processes, including weathering and hydrothermal alteration have been detected in these volcanics environments, which could be considered as part of a model for the primitive volcanic activity of Mars. The selected materials have been measured by micro-Raman spectroscopy, XRD and Mossbauer spectroscopy. The results show the primary mineralogy comprises on olivine, pyroxene and feldspar. Also, a wide variety of alterational materials, including oxides, clay minerals and carbonates have been detected. The results have proven to be a starting point to develop research focused to the development of science instrumentation for planetary exploration in volcanic environments. The instrumentation used was primarily through twin prototypes applied in space exploration such as XRD (on board at the NASA-MSL-Curiosity mission), Mossbauer spectroscopy (on board at the NASA-MER mission) and the future Raman instrument on ESA mission -ExoMars. In addition, the detected mineralogy is consistent with results reported on Mars. The Raman spectral analisys methods, characterization and identification, have been applied, where the analysis of the Raman profiles are extremely useful to clarify the geochemical origin of the mineral species. On the other hand, the results obtained by Raman have been confirmed by Mossbauer spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction.