Komatiites as Mercury surface analogues: Spectral measurements at PEL

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The elemental composition of Mercury's surface, which has been recently measured by the NASA MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, suggests a mineralogy dominated by magnesium-rich orthopyroxene and feldspar. The most magnesium-rich and aluminium-poor regions of Mercury's surface (which are presumably orthopyroxene-rich) have compositions, and possibly mineralogies, analogous to terrestrial boninites and basaltic komatiites. Unfortunately, little is known about the spectral properties of komatiites, especially at the high surface temperatures of Mercury. We therefore have collected three terrestrial komatiites with different compositions plus a synthetic komatiitic sample, and measured their reflectances in the visible and thermal infrared spectral ranges. Samples divided into four grain size ranges (when enough material was available) were measured fresh and after thermal processing in vacuum (10 Pa) at 500 °C, comparable to Mercury peak surface temperatures. Our measurements show that spectral changes between fresh and thermally processed samples occur in both spectral channels, but are stronger in the visible range, with reddening affecting all the samples, while darkening is more selective. It is important to note that darkening and reddening after thermally processing the samples are independent of the komatiites ferrous iron content. In fact the synthetic sample which is nearly iron-free is most strongly affected. From our study it turns out that thermally processing the samples in vacuum at Mercury surface temperature produces the removal of samples' colour centres. The results of our study show also that the Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) instrument on MESSENGER orbiting Mercury currently cannot distinguish between different compositions of komatiites, while the future MErcury Radiometer and Thermal infrared Imaging Spectrometer (MERTIS) on the upcoming ESA BepiColombo mission will resolve their differences in the 7−14μm spectral range.