Olivine

But then Percy spotted this little green mineral.

Nestled near the sample site, a small rock of olivine knocked the acidic water hypothesis on its head.

Olivine is the fastest weathering silicate mineral.

Unlike other silicone structures like silicon dioxide, for example, olivine doesn't have strong silicon, oxygen, silicon bonds.

Instead, it's made up of negatively charged silicate ions held together by the electrostatic attraction with positively charged magnesium and iron ions.

These were not sedimentary rocks, as had first been anticipated.

Instead, Perseverance had discovered the igneous rock, olivine.

Olivine is a type of mineral that can actually be found here on Earth, for instance, in parts of Australia.

Very conductive.

Olivine is a piezoelectric crystal.

It's the most abundant thing below our feet, not to mention there's quite a bit of iron and other conductive metals beneath our feet, and all the water that's down there as well.

There's three time- I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but did you know there's three times the amount of water in the ocean locked beneath our feet in the rock, in the crust, and other things like that?