20-EPN2-100: Spectroscopic Identification of Experimental Basalt Alteration Products Under Venus Conditions
Visit by Molly McCanta, University of Tennessee (USA), to TA2 Facility 5 – DLR Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (Germany).
Dates of visit: 14 – 20 October 2022
Report Summary: Experiments and thermodynamic modelling clearly show that sulfates are a common alteration product under the high temperature, CO2-SO2-rich conditions at the surface of Venus. The exact sulfates present depend on the original basalt composition, with anhydrite (CaSO4) and thernardite (Na2SO4) having been observed in the lab (Reid et al., 2023).
Alteration rates calculated from these experiments suggest that sulfate coatings may develop geologically fast and therefore alteration coatings may obscure the original protolith. Additionally, the spectral features of these high temperature sulfates are not well constrained. Although many critical sulfate minerals are stable to temperatures > 500C, previous analytical data has generally explored sulfate-temperature spectral relations to ~100C. The surface of Venus is significantly hotter at 470C. Thus is makes sense to investigate both the effects of variable thickness sulfate coatings and the spectral properties of sulfates under Venus surface conditions to gain a better understanding of their behaviour.
The next set of Venus missions will have observational capabilities in the thermal emission spectrum (range) and high T sulfate spectra are presented in another paper (Dyar ref); here we present data for the effects of high T on visible near-infrared (VNIR) sulfate spectra. In addition, we have conducted experiments to determine the effects of sulfate coating thickness on the underlying surface spectra. The data presented may help determine future mission capabilities to both recognise and analyse sulfate-bearing materials under high T conditions as well as constrain the original, unaltered surface composition.
