Murphy and 55 co-authors reported in later June 2026 that using a Raman spectrometer onboard the Perseverance rover, there is a heterogeneous distribution of organic carbon within mudstones located in an ancient river valley on Mars.
Geologic context of the Bright Angel outcrop.
Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.
In the figure above:
(A) Location of Bright Angel in Jezero crater, Mars (the white line shows the path that the rover traversed and the pink star marks the landing site on the crater floor).
(B) Zoomed-in view of the black box in (A). Light-toned rocks at Bright Angel visible from orbit (blue triangles denote targets analyzed with SHERLOC). The white dashed line indicates the approximate location of the contact between the Beaver Falls workspace and the Margin unit.
(C) WATSON self-portrait on sol 1218 at the Bright Angel outcrop showing the Beaver Falls workspace.
(D) Zoomed-in view of the blue box in (C). Mastcam-Z image (sol 1217, zcam09264) of the Cheyava Falls rock showing the Apollo Temple abrasion and postcoring of Sapphire Canyon.
(E) Zoomed-in view of the green box in (C). Mastcam-Z image (sol 1217, zcam09264) of the Steamboat Mountain abrasion.
(F) Mastcam-Z image (sol 1180, zcam09222) of the Walhalla Glades abrasion.
(G) Colorized ACI of the Cheyava Falls natural surface,
(H) the Apollo Temple abrasion,
(I) the Steamboat Mountain abrasion, and
(J) the Walhalla Glades abrasion. Yellow boxes indicate the locations of spectroscopy detail scans reported in this study.
Measurements of two mudstones show hundreds of organic detections, making this the most robust organic detection in Jezero crater thus far, and, to our knowledge, the only detection of macromolecular carbon on a natural rock surface on Mars.
Spectra of the interior of one rock reveal an association of organics with secondary carbonate and sulfate minerals, whereas another rock exhibits an association of organics with primary silicate-dominated matrix. Although in situ Raman analyses cannot determine whether these organics denote abiotic or biotic sources, the organic association with both depositional and diagenetic minerals and the detection of organics on the martian surface suggests that the organics observed ubiquitously at the Bright Angel outcrop may be resistant to radiation and oxidation or have been relatively recently exposed.
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