Geology of Danielson Crater, Mars

The Danielson impact crater is located at 8°N 353°E, between Meridiani Planum and Arabia Terra regions. The impact crater hosts one of the best-preserved successions of layered deposits inside a Martian basin, showing an alternation of light- and dark-toned layers, which compose a stairstepped stratal geometry widespread on crater’s surface. Layers were formed in an evaporitic setting, as suggested by sedimentological and morphologic analyses, and were affected by different kind of postdepositional structural deformations. In this work, we present the detailed geological map of the Danielson Crater, at the scale of 1:100,000. The stratigraphic units were distinguished on the basis of the photo-stratigraphic method, which classifies the rocks based on their photographic properties and features. The geological map will be useful for all the further geological analyses, aimed at understanding which depositional environments were present in the basin and how they evolved through time.