Earth Analogs for Potential Martian Biomes and the Search for Life on Mars

Details Earth Analogs for Potential Martian Biomes and the Search for Life on Mars Earth Analogs for Potential Martian Biomes and the Search for Life on Mars

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p42b..01b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P42B-01

Biology

0424 Biosignatures And Proxies, 0448 Geomicrobiology, 5200 Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology

Scientific paper

Planetary history, especially the history of the hydrosphere of Mars, can provide important constraints for the search for potentially habitable environments. Our team has focused on factors that influence the distribution of water over Mars history, including hydrothermal processes in the Martian crust and mantle convection. The phenomena that sculpt the planetary surface also constrain environment types that may be targets for life detection analyses. We have analyzed the mobility of granular flows for evidence of water and explored processes that give rise to geomorphological features on Earth considered to have formed by the same processes as those that formed amphitheater headed canyons on Mars. These analyses challenge the idea that the Mars canyon heads are spring incised, altering our perspective on these locations as sites of long term water availability. In geomicrobiological studies we have focused on sites that are likely to serve as partial analogs for potential habitats on Mars. We have selected systems in which the biomes are driven by chemical energy, especially those in which iron and sulfur serve key roles. These constituents are of particular interest, given that they occur in reasonable abundance at, and near, the Martian surface in a range of redox states. In addition to exploring the chemistry, microbiology, and biosignatures of environments shaped by interaction between water and basaltic rock and fault-related spring systems, we have investigated subsurface systems in which the microbiology is driven by iron and sulfur oxidation. These extreme acid environments are populated by self sustaining communities that are of low enough complexity to allow detailed metabolic analysis, as well as investigation of the interplay between environmental chemistry and biochemistry. Spectroscopic methods applied to the chemical signatures of these systems show characteristics with some similarity to those of Mars surface materials, increasing the possibility that acid sulfate systems may be appropriate targets for biosignature investigation.

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