High-Resolution Geological Map of Oxia Planum, Mars at 1:30,000 Scale

A 1:30,000 scale geological map of the Oxia Planum landing site for the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission. The dataset includes shapefiles and rasters detailing 15 bedrock units and 7 textural units, published by Peter Fawdon in 2024. It contains a 1.5 GB collection of map files, DEMs, and a browsable web map.

Use Cases

• Plan rover traverse paths based on detailed bedrock unit and surficial unit mapping.
• Identify astrobiologically relevant rock targets for sampling based on the mapped geological context.
• Test geological hypotheses about Oxia Planum within the wider history of Mars using the regional map.
• Generate terrain models for simulation using the included 1 m and 5 m Digital Elevation Models (DEMs).

Strengths

• High-resolution mapping at a 1:30,000 scale.
• Includes 15 bedrock units organized into 6 groups and 7 textural/surficial units.
• Contains multiple data products: shapefiles, layer files, 1 m DEM, slope map, aspect map, and a 5 m DEM.
• Published with a specific scientific objective to support the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for certain analyses.

Provenance

Source

Peter Fawdon, published on figshare.

Collection Method

Bedrock units were identified using visible and near-infrared remote sensing datasets.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-19 11:12:19; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Oxia Planum, Mars.