Comets, volcanism, the salt-rich regolith, and cycling of volatiles on Mars

Details Comets, volcanism, the salt-rich regolith, and cycling of volatiles on Mars Comets, volcanism, the salt-rich regolith, and cycling of volatiles on Mars

Aug 1987

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987icar...71..250c&link_type=abstract

(NASA, Lunar and Planetary Institute, and National Air and Space Museum, MECA Conference on Mars: The Evolution of Its Climate a

Physics

10

Comets, Mars Surface, Mars Volcanoes, Planetary Evolution, Regolith, Tables (Data), Trace Elements, Viking Mars Program, Volatility, Mars, Comets, Volcanism, Regolith, Cycles, Volatiles, Accretion, Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Abundance, Source, Outgassing, Water, Minerals, Volcanism, Carbonates, Nitrates

Scientific paper

Estimates of the total inventory of the volatile elements C, H, O, and N on Mars, based upon atmospheric gas tracers, vary by a factor of 25 among different authors. Accretion of comets as the source of volatiles can account for less than 5% of the actual inventory, assuming the chondritic S/Cl abundance ratio in comets and a Martian outgassing ratio for these two elements no lower than for the estimated excess volatile inventory on Earth. Sulfate salt formation with the igneous minerals in the regolith can be a major sink for H2O, but first will recycle C and N incorporated in carbonate and nitrate minerals back to the atmosphere. Extrusive and shallow intrusive volcanism, at a persistent but decreasing rate, can interfere with this volatile recycling by irreversibly masking much of the incorporated inventory, resulting in the inevitable evolution to a relatively volatile-poor environment at the outermost, observable surface of Mars.

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