Dr Stuart Turner

I'm a planetary scientist funded by the UK Space Agency to research fluid-rock interactions on Mars. To do this I analyse data returned by rovers and orbiters together with thermochemical modelling and laboratory experiments. As a collaborator on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Science Team, I investigate the thermochemical interactions that produced the alteration mineral assemblages observed by the Curiosity rover in Gale crater. I also focus on the alteration mineralogy observed at Oxia Planum, where the ESA ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover is destined to land and explore in 2021.

My background is primarily in physics. Prior to my appointment at the Open University I worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester, where I completed my PhD ‘Novel X-ray Diffraction and the Remote Analysis of Mars’ in 2017. For my PhD I researched post-noachian impact-induced hydrothermal activity on Mars, primarily by using the CRISM reflectance spectroscopy dataset to identify alteration mineral assemblages in and around impact craters. I also aided in the development of a novel back-reflection X-ray diffraction technique that is insensitive to sample morphology. Before my PhD I completed an MPhys Physics with Space Science and Technology in 2012, also at the University of Leicester.