Descripción de las Actividades de la Cadena de Valor de la Empresa

The formation of central uplifts remains a poorly understood process on Earth and other planetary bodies. The main objective of this thesis was to conduct detailed

morphological and structural mapping as well as compositional analysis of the central uplifts of Martian complex craters. We used Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) (McEwen et al., 2007), Context Camera (CTX) (Malin et al., 2007) and Compact Reconnaissance Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) (Murchie et al., 2007) datasets, supplemented by topography data from Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) (Smith et al., 2001) and thermal inertia data derived from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) (Christensen et al., 2004;

Fergason et al., 2006). Two craters located within Noachian-aged terrains were selected: Alga (333.3 E, 24.3 S), a ~19 km diameter crater located within Noachis Terra

southeast of Valles Marineris, and just north of Argyre Planitia; and Verlaine (64.1 °E, - 9.2 °S), a ~39 km diameter crater bordered by Terra Sabae and Tyrhenna Terra just north of Hellas Planitia. These craters were selected based on the fact that their central uplifts are mainly comprised of the massive and fractured bedrock (MFB) textural class initially defined by Tornabene et al. (2010) and catalogued in 124 of 200 complex craters on Mars (Tornabene et al., 2015).

The central uplift of Alga is characterized by olivine-bearing and low-calcium pyroxene (LCP)-bearing outcrops of MFB. The olivine-bearing MFB corresponds to the best- exposed and most coherent MFB with the highest thermal inertia, and is constrained to the northern and northwestern sections of the central uplift. The remaining bulk of the uplift is characterized by lower thermal inertia LCP-bearing MFB. The central uplift of Verlaine is comprised of both the MFB and megabrecciated bedrock (MBB) textural classes that exhibit the highest thermal inertia. The MFB in Verlaine appears to be enriched in olivine, although it is pervasively altered throughout the uplift. Additional

spectral analysis will be conducted when we will have acquired a targeted observation from the upcoming CRISM “cold cycle”. While Alga Crater is strictly characterized by an unaltered mafic mineralogy, secondary alteration phases interpreted as Fe/Mg-rich clays correlate with olivine-bearing MFB in the central uplift of Verlaine Crater and are consistent with pre-impact uplifted and excavated hydrated silicates, similarly to

observations at Ritchey Crater by Sun and Milliken (2014). Structural analysis of both central uplifts revealed that lineaments are oriented radially and concentrically to the uplift, which is equivalent to structural assessments of terrestrial complex structures such as the Haughton impact structure on Devon Island (Osinski and Spray, 2005) and Ritchey Crater on Mars (Ding et al., 2015).

A very important outcome of this study is that both central uplifts are overlain by a significant proportion of impact melt-bearing lithologies of varying tonality (dark,

medium and light-toned) and clast content (clast-poor and clast-rich), and are embayed in crater-related pitted materials (Tornabene et al., 2012). Approximately three quarters (or ~73%) of the central uplift of Alga is coated (i.e., overlain) by impact melt-bearing lithologies and close to two thirds (or ~60%) of the central uplift of Verlaine is covered by these deposits. In Alga Crater, we observe the dark-toned clast-rich melt to be directly grading into the clast-rich melt, which we suggest is a result of the incorporation of lithic clasts from the underlying bedrock as impact melt flowed downward towards the crater floor. In Verlaine Crater, this grading relationship is rare, but we record a contiguous relationship between dark-toned clast-poor and medium-toned clast-poor impact melt rocks. Sometimes, the medium-toned clast-poor melt is observed to be overlying the darker-toned melt, and is suggested to possess a lighter tonality due to an enrichment in clasts, although not discernable at the resolution of HiRISE (~50 cm/pixel for Verlaine). The origin of the bedrock exposed in the central uplift of Alga Crater is complicated by the fact that it is located within Chekalin Crater, which in turn is located in the vicinity of Ladon Basin, and on a greater scale in the vicinity of Argyre Planitia. On the other hand, Verlaine Crater is located within a large (~200-km scale) degraded impact basin and within the vicinity of the Huygens peak-ring basin and the Hellas Basin. The results of

our morphological, structural, and spectral mapping indicate that olivine-rich and low- calcium pyroxene-rich bedrock in Alga Crater is consistent with other studies of Martian central uplifts around Argyre Planitia (Skok et al., 2012; Pan et al., 2015). Furthermore, we suggest that Alga Crater strictly uplifted the central uplift of Chekalin Crater based on its relative position in the centre of Chekalin, and the absence of layered rocks in the crater walls and terraces. In Verlaine Crater, we observed impact megabreccia that is very similar to megabreccia observed in the central uplift of Toro Crater (Marzo et al., 2010), and we suggested that it is was formed by the Verlaine impact event.

In conclusion, this study demonstrates the importance of correlating morphological and structural observations with compositional analysis, and care is needed when interpreting intra-crater deposits. Our results indicate that central uplifts of Martian complex craters correlate with previous studies of uplifts in the surrounding regions, that they expose mafic-rich deep-seated bedrock, and that they correlate well with results of global surface mapping.