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Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays

In situ investigations by the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity rover, have confirmed the presence of an ancient lake in Gale crater for up to 10 million years. The lake was filled with sediments that eventually converted to a compacted sandstone. However, it remains unclear whether the infilling o...

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Autores principales: Losa-Adams, Elisabeth, Gil-Lozano, Carolina, Fairén, Alberto G., Bishop, Janice L., Rampe, Elizabeth B., Gago-Duport, Luis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7611674/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34541329
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01397-x
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author Losa-Adams, Elisabeth
Gil-Lozano, Carolina
Fairén, Alberto G.
Bishop, Janice L.
Rampe, Elizabeth B.
Gago-Duport, Luis
author_facet Losa-Adams, Elisabeth
Gil-Lozano, Carolina
Fairén, Alberto G.
Bishop, Janice L.
Rampe, Elizabeth B.
Gago-Duport, Luis
author_sort Losa-Adams, Elisabeth
collection PubMed
description In situ investigations by the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity rover, have confirmed the presence of an ancient lake in Gale crater for up to 10 million years. The lake was filled with sediments that eventually converted to a compacted sandstone. However, it remains unclear whether the infilling of the lake was the result of background sedimentation processes or represents punctual flooding events in a largely isolated lake. Here we used the XRD data obtained with the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin), on board the Curiosity rover, to characterize the degree of disorder of clay minerals in the Murray formation (MF) at Gale crater. Our analysis shows that they are structurally and compositionally related to glauconitic clays, which are a sensitive proxy of quiescent conditions in liquid bodies for extended periods of time. Such results provide evidence of long periods of extremely low sedimentation in an ancient brackish lake on Mars, signature of an aqueous regime with slow evaporation at low temperatures. More in general, the identification of lacustrine glauconitic clays on Mars provides a key parameter in the characterization of aqueous Martian paleoenvironments that may once have harbored life.
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spelling pubmed-76116742021-09-17 Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays Losa-Adams, Elisabeth Gil-Lozano, Carolina Fairén, Alberto G. Bishop, Janice L. Rampe, Elizabeth B. Gago-Duport, Luis Nat Astron Article In situ investigations by the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity rover, have confirmed the presence of an ancient lake in Gale crater for up to 10 million years. The lake was filled with sediments that eventually converted to a compacted sandstone. However, it remains unclear whether the infilling of the lake was the result of background sedimentation processes or represents punctual flooding events in a largely isolated lake. Here we used the XRD data obtained with the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin), on board the Curiosity rover, to characterize the degree of disorder of clay minerals in the Murray formation (MF) at Gale crater. Our analysis shows that they are structurally and compositionally related to glauconitic clays, which are a sensitive proxy of quiescent conditions in liquid bodies for extended periods of time. Such results provide evidence of long periods of extremely low sedimentation in an ancient brackish lake on Mars, signature of an aqueous regime with slow evaporation at low temperatures. More in general, the identification of lacustrine glauconitic clays on Mars provides a key parameter in the characterization of aqueous Martian paleoenvironments that may once have harbored life. 2021-09 2021-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7611674/ /pubmed/34541329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01397-x Text en http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html#termsUsers may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use: http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html#terms
spellingShingle Article
Losa-Adams, Elisabeth
Gil-Lozano, Carolina
Fairén, Alberto G.
Bishop, Janice L.
Rampe, Elizabeth B.
Gago-Duport, Luis
Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
title Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
title_full Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
title_fullStr Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
title_full_unstemmed Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
title_short Long lasting habitable periods in Gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
title_sort long lasting habitable periods in gale crater constrained by glauconitic clays
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7611674/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34541329
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01397-x
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