Reduced and Oxidized Sulfur Compounds Detected by Evolved Gas Analyses of Materials from Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars

Sulfate minerals have been directly detected or strongly inferred from several Mars datasets and indicate that aqueous alteration of martian surface materials has occurred. Indications of reduced sulfur phases (e.g., sulfides) from orbital and in situ investigations of martian materials have been fewer in number, but these phases are observed in martian meteorites and are likely because they are common minor phases in basaltic rocks. Here we discuss potential sources for the S-bearing compounds detected by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument’s evolved gas analysis (EGA)
experiments.