Hello, Drs. Nikolaeva and Abdrakhimov. I was interested to read your
report "ROCKS OF ANDESITIC COMPOSITION AT THE MARS PATHFINDER SITE
REVEAL CHEMICAL ANALOGY WITH SUBDUCTION-RELATED ANDESITES OF EARTH,"
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1999LPI....30.1376N . I
was trying to encourage further analyses with the MER rovers of the
"mystery material" found at the Gusev landing site. One thing that
might give this further importance would be if it was found this
mystery material seen by the rover thermal emission spectrometers is
the same as the undetermined material seen by the thermal emission
spectrometer on the MGS orbiter. Then determination of the chemical
composition of this material would solve one of the major questions
revealed by the MGS mission.
In this regard I was intrigued in your report you said the
"andesitic" rock seen at Pathfinder might have been subjected to
liquid water alteration. Then do you think this "andesitic" rock at
Pathfinder may actually be the same material as the alternative view
of the "andesitic" rock seen from orbit by TES as in fact liquid water
altered basalt?
It doesn't have to be PROVEN that your analyses shows the rocks seen
at Pathfinder were liquid water basalt, but only that this is within
the permissible range of the data. Then it may be that up close
examination of the mystery material at Gusev could solve key mysteries
of the origin of the material seen by all three of these Mars
missions.

Thank You,

Bob Clark

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Robert Clark
Dept. of Mathematics
Widener University
One University Place
Chester, PA 19013 USA
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