juliensimon/mars-chemcam-compositions

Mars ChemCam LIBS Oxide Compositions

Part of the Planetary Science Datasets collection on Hugging Face.

Major oxide compositions of Mars surface rock and soil targets analyzed by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument aboard the Curiosity rover. Currently 30,458 individual point analyses across 4,184 named targets, spanning sols 0 to 4612.

Dataset description

ChemCam fires a focused laser pulse at rock and soil targets up to ~7 meters away, creating a plasma whose emission spectrum reveals elemental composition. The Major Oxide Compositions (MOC) data product provides predicted weight percentages for nine major oxides (SiO2, TiO2, Al2O3, FeOT, MgO, CaO, Na2O, K2O, MnO) derived from the LIBS spectra using a combined PLS+ICA multivariate model.

Each row represents a single LIBS analysis point. Multiple points are typically measured per target to characterize compositional variability. Uncertainty estimates (RMSEP and shot-to-shot standard deviation) are provided for each oxide.

Schema

Column	Type	Description
file	string	Source spectrum filename
target	string	Named target on the Martian surface
sio2	float64	Silicon dioxide (wt%)
sio2_rmsep	float64	SiO2 RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
sio2_shots_stdev	float64	SiO2 shot-to-shot standard deviation
tio2	float64	Titanium dioxide (wt%)
tio2_rmsep	float64	TiO2 RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
tio2_shots_stdev	float64	TiO2 shot-to-shot standard deviation
al2o3	float64	Aluminum oxide (wt%)
al2o3_rmsep	float64	Al2O3 RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
al2o3_shots_stdev	float64	Al2O3 shot-to-shot standard deviation
feot	float64	Total iron as FeO (wt%)
feot_rmsep	float64	FeOT RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
feot_shots_stdev	float64	FeOT shot-to-shot standard deviation
mgo	float64	Magnesium oxide (wt%)
mgo_rmsep	float64	MgO RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
mgo_shots_stdev	float64	MgO shot-to-shot standard deviation
cao	float64	Calcium oxide (wt%)
cao_rmsep	float64	CaO RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
cao_shots_stdev	float64	CaO shot-to-shot standard deviation
na2o	float64	Sodium oxide (wt%)
na2o_rmsep	float64	Na2O RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
na2o_shots_stdev	float64	Na2O shot-to-shot standard deviation
k2o	float64	Potassium oxide (wt%)
k2o_rmsep	float64	K2O RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
k2o_shots_stdev	float64	K2O shot-to-shot standard deviation
mno	float64	Manganese oxide (wt%)
mno_rmsep	float64	MnO RMSEP uncertainty from calibration model
mno_shots_stdev	float64	MnO shot-to-shot standard deviation
sum_of_oxides	float64	Sum of all oxide compositions (wt%)
distance_m	float64	Distance from rover to target (meters)
laser_power	string	Laser power settings
spectrum_total	string	Total spectrum intensity
sol_range_min	int64	Start of sol range for this data file
sol_range_max	int64	End of sol range for this data file

Quick stats

• 30,458 LIBS point analyses across 4,184 targets
• Sols 0 to 4612 of Curiosity's traverse
• Mean SiO2: 47.6 wt% | Mean FeOT: 18.0 wt%

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/mars-chemcam-compositions", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Average oxide composition per target
target_avg = df.groupby("target")[
    ["sio2", "tio2", "al2o3", "feot", "mgo", "cao", "na2o", "k2o"]
].mean()

# High-silica targets (possible felsic rocks)
felsic = target_avg[target_avg["sio2"] > 60].sort_values("sio2", ascending=False)

# Iron-rich targets
iron_rich = df[df["feot"] > 25].sort_values("feot", ascending=False)

# Composition variability within a single target
target_std = df.groupby("target")[["sio2", "feot", "mgo"]].std()

Data source

PDS Geosciences Node — MSL ChemCam LIBS RDR, Washington University in St. Louis. Major Oxide Compositions (MOC) derived using the combined PLS+ICA multivariate model (sPDL Tool v2.5).

Related datasets

• mars-craters — Robbins Mars crater catalog
• neo-close-approaches — Near-Earth object approaches
• small-body-database — JPL small body orbital parameters

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Citation

@dataset{mars_chemcam_compositions,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {Mars ChemCam LIBS Oxide Compositions},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/mars-chemcam-compositions},
  note = {Based on MSL ChemCam LIBS MOC data from the PDS Geosciences Node}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0