Roger Burns

The previous post probably erred in saying that it was Hank Moore of the USGS who was a big fan of the mineral jarosite. While it's conceivable that Moore was a jarosite fan, I think (thanks to a comment by Bruce) that the person they were talking about was in fact the pioneering mineralogist Roger Burns, who died ten years ago. There's a little about him and his legacy in the preface to this paper, which then goes on to review a lot of Mars mineralogy and discuss the possibility of sulphates such as those Opportunity has now discovered. Be warned, though, that venturing beyond the preface is probably best left to those who know their montmorillonite from their phyllosilicates. Sample: "The answer to the question "Why is Mars red?" is that sunlight incident on the surface is preferentially absorbed from the ultraviolet to about 0.6 um via a series of ligand field and cation pair transitions in ferric iron-bearing minerals".

Comments

[Jay Manifold]

Indeed, the notes I was frantically typing while listening to the webcast on Tuesday state that Jarosite was "predicted as something that might be found on Mars by late colleague Roger Burns." A real transcript could probably confirm this.

[Bruce Moomaw]

"The answer to the question 'Why is Mars red?' is that sunlight incident on the surface is preferentially absorbed from the ultraviolet to about 0.6 um via a series of ligand field and cation pair transitions in ferric iron-bearing minerals".

Yeah. You got a problem with that, buddy?

Seriously, most of the article is far more easily understandable. I ran across it a few months ago (before the MER landings) and found it immensely useful in summarizing the remote spectral evidence of Mars minerology -- and I'm not a scientist.

I do note that I got Burns' first name wrong when I was listening to my tape recording of the press conference -- it's Roger, not Robert. (I do remember wondering at the time whether he had a Scottish accent.)

[Oliver Morton]

Fair point, Bruce -- I just liked the counterpoint of simple question and erudite answer, and I guess took a slightly cheap shot.

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