Perseverance Rover Unearths Ancient Martian Geology in Lac de Charmes Region

Written by Athanasios (Thanos) Klidaras, Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University

Sept. 21, 2026

After a long hiatus, the Perseverance rover updates page is back. A lot has happened on Mars in the meantime, and with regular updates now resuming, there is plenty to catch up on — Perseverance has been busy. The rover has spent 2026 exploring the “Lac de Charmes” area, a region of valleys and ridges west of the Jezero crater rim that represents a “wild west frontier” for the mission. The rocks encountered here are among the oldest the rover has seen, having formed when Mars was still a young planet bombarded by asteroid impacts, long before the sedimentary rocks inside Jezero crater formed in rivers and lakes. These ancient formations could reveal much about the earliest era of Martian history and how rocky planets evolved during the early, tumultuous history of our solar system.

The science team decided to explore this ancient terrain first, before selecting rocks for sampling. By tracing Perseverance’s looping path on the rover’s location map, scientists have gained insight into how “Lac de Charmes” was formed. During this period, the rover created 13 abrasion patches on rocks of interest, yielding a wealth of scientific data. Initial investigations suggest many of these patches are igneous rocks formed from cooled lava or magma, while others are impactite rocks formed after violent collisions — and some show evidence of both processes. Exploration efficiency was boosted by a new algorithm that repurposes a processor originally used for communicating with the Ingenuity helicopter, enabling longer and more accurate drives.

Perseverance’s exploration of the “Lac de Charmes” region is nearing its end, but discoveries continue. The team recently directed the rover toward an area nicknamed “Idubi,” where hundreds of light‑toned boulders were spotted from a distance. “Idubi” proved to be a scientific bonanza, with rocks of varying texture and composition concentrated there. When Perseverance investigated one of these boulders, an abrasion patch named “Badger Peak” revealed a striking light‑and‑dark texture (shown in the image above) unlike any previously observed. An attempt to sample the boulder failed due to its high hardness, so the team is now searching elsewhere for a similar rock. In the meantime, the rover paused to examine a nearby outcrop called “Gardenia,” which may be a breccia — a rock composed of fragments of older rocks. This week, the rover will perform another abrasion to give the science team a detailed view. Even after months of exploring Lac de Charmes, the team remains surprised, and with Perseverance preparing to move onward, more exciting stories are expected.

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