Investigation of hematite mineral distribution using remote sensing and ground observations in Mars/Gale crater

The aim of this study is to calibrate the satellite data, which can observe the whole of Mars, with more sensitive ground data, to ensure that more sensitive data can be produced. In the study, mineral exploration was carried out in the VRR region, which is a topographical elevation extending in the northwest flank of the crater and in the northeast-southwest direction, using the FRT imaging type of the CRISM sensor on the MRO satellite sent to Mars orbit by the USA in 2006 and the Mastcam sensor located on the Curiosity rover, which was also landed on the Gale Crater region on Mars by the USA in 2012. The necessary corrections for the satellite data preprocessing were made by using the CAT module running on the IDL/ENVI program, and the Band Depth method was applied to the corrected satellite data. The results were compared with the minerals in the MICA library, and the hematite (Fe2O3), which can produce iron by processing, was determined in the VRR region. In the same region, hematite mineral was detected by the analysis of Mastcam data, and Mastcam detected hematite in pixels where the CRISM detector could not detect hematite. A model was developed using 273 hematite samples from the 78 sol days of the Curiosity rover, which hit 40 CRISM pixels in the study area to calculate the correction to be brought to the CRISM data. By using the regression coefficients of the model, whose Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was found to be 86% and MAE was found to be 1.5%, The BD860_2 index, which detects the hematite mineral, was modified as ModBD860_2 and this index was applied to the CRISM data, and the hematite mineral distribution map in the study area was updated. Although the distribution of hematite in the study area was determined as 46 % using the BD860_2 index, it was found to be 74 % using the ModBD860_2 index.