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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered evidence of silica-rich volcanic materials [csmonitor.com], a development that has surprised scientists and contradicted previous thinking about the planet's volcanic processes. 

In a sedimentary rock in Gale Crater, Curiosity found high concentrations [pnas.org] of a mineral called tridymite (SiO2), a cousin of quartz that crystallizes at low pressures and high temperatures.

High-silica magmas form under very different circumstances from the much more common basaltic magmas, so this presents the first mineralogical evidence of these kind of super-explosive volcanoes on Mars. 

The Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater since 2012 [csmonitor.com], where it has found evidence of environments friendly to life, including signs of a series of long-lasting lakes. Curiosity explored a region called Marias Pass last year and used its CheMin instrument [nasa.gov] that shot X-rays into a mudstone. The researchers studied the way the X-rays scattered and determined the existence of tridymite.

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