Eighth International Conference on Mars (2014) 1201.pdf Possible origin of chlorobenzene detected by SAM instrument at Gale crater, Mars: synergy of iron oxides and perchlorate and consequences for organic matter analysis. P. Francois1, P. Coll1, C. Szopa2, T. Georgelin3, A. Buch4, C. Freissinet5,6, I. Belmahdi4, A. McAdam5, J. Eigenbrode5, D. Glavin5, S. Kashyap5, A. R. Navarro- Gonzalez7, P. Mahaffy5 and M. Cabane2.
[email protected]. 1LISA, Univ. Paris-Est Créteil, Univ. Denis Diderot & CNRS 94010 Créteil, France 2LATMOS, Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Univ. Versailles Saint- Quentin & CNRS, 75005 Paris, France 3LRS, Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Ivry sur Seine, France 4LGPM, Ecole Centrale de Paris, 92295 Châtenay-Malabry 5NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA 6NASA Postdoctoral Program Administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA 7Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F. 04510, Mexico Introduction: The Sample Analysis at Mars rates [5]. Apart from an oxychlorine phase, CB sam- (SAM) instrument on the Curiosity rover is designed to ples also contain iron oxides (e.g. hematite, magnetite) determine the inventory of organic and inorganic vola- [6] which could oxidize organic compounds and cata- tiles thermally evolved from solid samples notably by lyze their decomposition leading to differences in the using a combination of evolved gas analysis (EGA) amount and/or nature of the observed pyrolysis prod- and pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry ucts [7, 8]. A synergy between oxychlorine phases and (pyr-GC-MS) [1]. Multiple portions from three solid iron oxides in the presence of a carbon source can samples have been analyzed by SAM : a scoop of ba- potentially lead to the formation of CBZ, without any saltic sand at Rocknest (RN) and two drilled samples of specific need for aromatic precursors.