‘‘Soil’’ refers to all other, typically unconsolidated, material including those sufficiently fine-grained to be mobilized by wind. This approach enables agreement across Martian remote sensing methods that span the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma to radio waves.
Consequently, rocks classify as grains exceeding the size of cobbles on the Wentworth scale. Rocks generally refer to 10 cm scale and larger materials (e.g., fragments, breccia, and exposed outcrops) with high thermal inertia, with areal fractions consistent with the Viking Infrared Thermal Mapper (IRTM) data, and immobile under current aeolian (wind) conditions. In contrast, planetary scientists adopt a functional definition of soil to distinguish it from rocks. On Earth, the term "soil" usually includes organic content. So far, no samples have been returned to Earth, the goal of a Mars sample-return mission, but the soil has been studied remotely with the use of Mars rovers and Mars orbiters. The term Martian soil typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith.
Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil, including its toxicity due to the presence of perchlorates. Martian soil is the fine regolith (a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock) found on the surface of Mars. Curiosity 's view of Martian soil and boulders after crossing the "Dingo Gap" sand dune (Februimage transformed to Earth-like atmospheric view, original image).
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