Biology
Scientific paper
Dec 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p51d0946i&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P51D-0946
Biology
5200 Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology, 6225 Mars
Scientific paper
The arid core region of the Atacama Desert located in Yungay, Chile contains Mars-like soils that have undetectable bacterial populations, low organic concentrations, and the presence of a non-chirally specific oxidant (Navarro-Gonzalez, et al., 2003, Science 302, 1018-1021). The level of organics in these soils would be undetectable by pyr-GC-MS at Viking temperatures (200-500°C) but detectable at higher temperatures (750°C). The chemical characterization of organics in these soils is relevant for the development of new methodologies for the search of organics in the Martian surface. Consequently we have extracted the organics from the soil matrix using organic solvents in a Soxhlet apparatus, and analyzed the dry residue by different analytical techniques such as 1H-NMR, FTIR, GC-MS, and pyr-GC-MS. Our preliminary results indicate that the organics present in the soil of the core region of the Atacama Desert are composed of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cyclic aliphatic chains, and different carboxylic and amino groups.
Iñiguez Enrique
McKay Chris
Miranda L. D.
Navarro-González Rafael
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