Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011psrd.repte.160t&link_type=abstract
Planetary Science Research Discoveries
Other
Martian Meteorite, Alh 84001, Alh84001, Mars, Carbonates, Life On Mars, Impact Cratering, Carbonates, Evaporation, Subsurface Water, Geology, Planetary Science, Aqueous Geochemistry
Scientific paper
Carbonate minerals in the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite are important because they ought to contain information about the chemistry and temperature of the water they formed in. They are also an important part of testing the idea that the meteorite contains evidence of past life on Mars. Hypotheses for the origin of the carbonates are impressively varied. A key test of the ideas is to determine the temperature at which the carbonates formed. Estimates up to now range from a bit below freezing to 700 oC, too big a range to test anything! To address the problem Itay Halevy, Woodward Fischer, and John Eiler (Caltech) used an approach that involves "clumped" isotope thermometry, which makes comparisons among different isotopic compositions of extracted CO2. This allowed the investigators to use the isotopic abundances of both carbon and oxygen. The results indicate that the carbonates formed at 18 ± 4 oC from a shallow subsurface (upper few meters to tens of meters) pool of water that was gradually evaporating. The wet episode did not last long, leading Halevy and his colleagues to conclude that the environment may have been too transient for life to have emerged here from scratch. On the other hand, if life already existed on the Martian surface this wet near-surface environment would have provided a happy home. An impact blasted the Martian home of ALH 84001, causing a transient heating event, perhaps disturbing the isotopic record...or perhaps not because the event was so short. In any case, the clumped isotope thermometry approach seems to have given a good measurement of the temperature at which the carbonate minerals formed.
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