Structural Change in Impact Altered Phyllosilicates as Detected by Laboratory Spectroscopy and Applied to the Remote Sensing of the Surface of Mars

Atomic-scale mineral properties directly control detectable macroscopic properties. These include reactivity and stability as well as characteristic vibrational and electronic spectroscopic features. The connection between structure and spectroscopic properties in minerals is of fundamental importance to the interpretation of remote sensing data, especially in planetary science where ground-truth is very difficult. On planets without plate tectonics such as Mars, meteoritic impacts are a fundamental geologic process known to affect the structure of planetary surfaces, as well as their mineralogy. This work uses a wide range of laboratory spectroscopic techniques to detect and investigate structural change in impact-altered phyllosilicates. The analysis of multiple spectroscopic techniques provides a detailed understanding of the structural change induced in phyllosilicates by impacts. These results are then applied to the remote sensing of a geologically complex region on the martian surface.