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Bonneville — on Mars

Posted on: Monday, 8 March 2004, 06:00 CST

BLACKFOOT, Idaho -- The name "Bonneville" is common throughout the western United States and is even on Mars.

NASA's rover Spirit is headed toward a 160-yard-wide crater named Bonneville.

Sheri Klug, an earth sciences expert who works with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in conjunction with Arizona State University's Mars Education Program, said the crater took its name from ancient Lake Bonneville, which covered most of what is now Utah and portions of Nevada and Idaho up to roughly 14,000 years ago.

Klug said the reason NASA chose the areas it did for exploration was to find evidence of ancient water.

"With the Mars exploration mantra being 'follow the water,' we want to go where water has been," she said.

NASA scientists decided a number of features in that area, including Bonneville, were like paleolakes, or ancient lakes.

Great Salt Lake is a remnant of Lake Bonneville and many Mars scientists have studied features left by the long-drained ancient lake, including the shorelines that are the bench areas on Salt Lake City mountainsides.

"They've spent time out there to see what a paleolake would look like, what kind of features would be left lying on the shorelines, what kind of things can we see from our orbiters that might look what we see on the (Martian) ground," she said.

NASA announced Tuesday that its other rover, Opportunity, found evidence on the other side of Mars that some rocks "were once soaked with liquid water."

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