This discovery was so close to the surface, that oil was found seeping up around the drill bits while these vehicles were excavating for samples.
Planetary geologists theorise that this oil was not derived from decaying vegetation but was the product of interstellar clouds of hydrocarbons falling like rain on the surface of Mars from comets torn apart by Jupiter's gravitational field.
The US Government has responded quickly by giving a contract to the Halibut Corporation to develop ways and means of exploiting this oil and transporting it to Earth.
Preliminary studies suggest that an industrial grade particle accelerator should be located in the caldera of Olympus Mons and the oil be pumped from all over Mars to that location.
Once accelerated to escape velocity along a matrix of laser beams, the oil could be targeted at the Arizona Meteor Crater at times of close alignment and when wind velocity in the Winslow area was below 15km/hour to prevent any atmospheric dispersion.
Professor Rube Goldberg, of the Faculty of Interstellar Transportation, University of Roswell, contends that the quantity of oil so derived could make the US self-sufficient for oil within five years.
He theorises that what were believed to be dust storms on Mars were actually fresh infalls of hydrocarbons raining on the planet, and that Percival Lowell's canals were really sightings of this hydrocarbon rain draining along channels until it soaked into the desert sands.