Regional Geologic Mapping of the Oxia Planum Landing Site for ExoMars

The ExoMars mission will deploy a stationary surface platform and a rover in Oxia Planum (OP), a region at the transition between the heavily cratered highlands of Mars and the ancient and filled impact basin, Chryse Planitia. While the fundamental geologic characteristics of the area have been investigated during the landing site selection process, detailed geologic or morphostratigraphic mapping is still missing. To fill this knowledge gap, two complementary mapping approaches were initiated by the ExoMars RSOWG: (1) Local HiRISE-scale mapping of the landing ellipse(s) area (reported elsewhere: Sefton-Nash et al., LPSC 2020). (2) Regional mapping at ~CTXscale [this study] will provide a more synoptic view of the wider landing site within OP, enabling the contextualization of the units within the stratigraphy of western Arabia Terra and Chryse Planitia, and a comparison to other sites with similar key geologic and physiographic characteristics. It is also expected that this map will serve as a geologic reference throughout the mission and subsequent data analysis.