Project goals:

Goal 1: Early Mars aqueous environments

Exploit the ability of hydrated silica minerals to record water-rich settings to gain knowledge on Early Mars conditions

GOAL 2 : EARLY MARS HABITABILITY

Understand the ability hydrated silica minerals to record habitable environments and sequester organic carbon

GOAL 3: HYDRATED SILICA AS ASTROBIOLOGICAL TARGET

Are hydrated silica minerals good targets to find biosignatures at Mars, which form should current/future missions target ?

Work packages

Mars hydrated silica

REMOTE SENSING of MARS HySI SITES

Compositional sensing, geomorphological mapping

SUPPORTING MARS OBSERVATIONS in the lab

Near infrared spectroscopic measurements on relevant HySi analogues: spectra and optical constants for abundance retreivals at Mars

Expected outcomes

Identify new Mars HySi sites of interest

Conduct in-depth investigations on short list

Provide reliable mineral abundance estimates

Terrestrial hydrated silica

STUDY HYSI ANALOGUE SITES ON EARTH

Identify and study new relevant Mars analogue sites for HySi precipitation here on Earth

COLLECT SAMPLES

From naturally occuring HySi, with and without organic matter in them

Expected outcomes

At the macro scale: better understanding of geologic and geochemical conditions for Mars HySi precipitation

At the micro scale: samples for study in the lab, for their mineralogy, host/co-occuring phases, and organic content

Hydrated silica in the lab

REPRODUCE HYSI PRECIPITATION CONDITIONS

Derive protocole to precipitate HySi forms that have a composition and micro texture relevant to Mars and natural terrestrial HySi

EXPERIMENTAL HYSI-ORGANIC MATTER INTERACTIONS

Incorporate organic matter into HySi phases through different mechanisms relevant to natural environments, life-bearing or not

Expected outcomes

Understand the geochemical conditions for HySi precipitation at Mars

Understand the mechanisms by which organic matter interacts with HySi

Understand the co-evolution of HySi and organic matter when they are made to interact

Understand the protecting effect of HySi on organic matter undergoing maturation

All three approaches provide angles to the overarching goals of this project:

Knowledge from terrestrial sites/samples helps refine our experimental protocols

Knowledge of Mars HySi sites helps selecting the most relevant sampling sites on Earth and compounds to experiment on in the lab

In turn, knowledge from analogue field sites and experiments on HySi and organic matter helps better interpret what Mars HySi sites can tell us about the early water-bearing environments there.

They also will help us pinpoint which sites should be explored in priority for their potential to host organic matter of astrobiological relevance

Projet financé par l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche, édition 2020, ANR-20-CE49-0013-01

Contact: john.carter@lam.fr