Characterisation of the magnetic iron phases in Clovis Class rocks in Gusev crater from the MER Spirit Mössbauer spectrometer

Abstract Mossbauer backscattering spectra of eight Martian rocks, acquired by the MIMOS II spectrometer of Rover Spirit (MER-A) and containing goethite in addition to other iron minerals, have been selected for in-depth numerical analysis. Where feasible, different temperature windows for a given rock were considered. A novel calibration/folding procedure, exclusively based on the fitted positions of the eight prominent absorption lines in the transmission spectra of the reference target and not relying on the error signal of the MIMOS II spectrometer, has been developed. It is demonstrated that this procedure yields reliable and reasonably accurate values for the adjusted Mossbauer paramet…