This suggests that these alkali rocks have been transported by fluvial activity and could come from the Northern rim of the crater, and may correspond to deeper strata buried under basaltic regolith (Sautter et al., 2015). close to the Peace Vallis more » alluvial fan deposits. The basalts and gabbros are found all along the traverse of the rover, whereas the felsic rocks are located before the Kimberley formation, i.e. porphyritic trachyandesites, leucocratic trachytes and quartz-diorites. dark aphanitic basalts/basanites, trachybasalts, tephrites and fine/coarse-grained gabbros/norites to more evolved materials i.e. From their textural analysis and their whole-rock compositions, all these 59 igneous rocks have been classified in five different groups from primitive rocks i.e. Iron oxides have been observed in all groups whereas F-bearing minerals have been detected only in few of them. Darker crystals observed in all igneous rocks (except the leucocratic vesiculated ones) were analyzed by LIBS and mainly identified as Fe-rich pigeonites and Fe-augites. They correspond to feldspars ranging from andesines/oligoclases to anorthoclases and sanidines in the leucocratic vesiculated rocks. Light-toned crystals have been observed in most of the rocks. This article focuses on their textures (acquired from the cameras such as MAHLI and MastCam) and their geochemical compositions that have been obtained using the ChemCam instrument. In Gale crater on Mars, the Curiosity rover discovered 59 igneous rocks. Several recent studies have revealed that Mars is not a simple basalt-covered planet, but has a more complex geological history.
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