A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars

Condensed Matter journal club

A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 23rd January 2015
  • Speaker: Petra Schwendner (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Abstract

The Curiosity rover discovered fine-grained sedimentary rocks, which are inferred to represent an ancient lake and preserve evidence of an environment that would have been suited to support a martian biosphere founded on chemolithoautotrophy. This aqueous environment was characterized by neutral pH, low salinity, and variable redox states of both iron and sulfur species. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus were measured directly as key biogenic elements; by inference, phosphorus is assumed to have been available. The environment probably had a minimum duration of hundreds to tens of thousands of years. These results highlight the biological viability of fluvial-lacustrine environments in the post-Noachian history of Mars.
Science 343 pages 1242777-1 to 1242777-14 (2014)
pdf version

Authors

J. P. Grotzinger, D. Y. Sumner, L. C. Kah, K. Stack, S. Gupta, L. Edgar, D. Rubin, Lewis, J. Schieber, N. Mangold, R. Milliken, P. G. Conrad, D. DesMarais, J. Farmer, K. Siebach, F. Calef III, J. Hurowitz, S. M. McLennan, D. Ming, D. Vaniman, J. Crisp, A. Vasavada, K. S. Edgett, M. Malin, D. Blake, R. Gellert, P. Mahaffy, R. C. Wiens, S. Maurice, J. A. Grant, S. Wilson, R. C. Anderson, L. Beegle, R. Arvidson, B. Hallet, R. S. Sletten, M. Rice, J. Bell III, J. Griffes, B. Ehlmann, R. B. Anderson, T. F. Bristow, W. E. Dietrich, G. Dromart, J. Eigenbrode, A. Fraeman, C. Hardgrove, K. Herkenhoff, L. Jandura, G. Kocurek, S. Lee, L. A. Leshin, R. Leveille, D. Limonadi, J. Maki, S. McCloskey, M. Meyer, M. Minitti, H. Newsom, D. Oehler, A. Okon, M. Palucis, T. Parker, S. Rowland, M. Schmidt, S. Squyres, A. Steele, E. Stolper, R. Summons, A. Treiman, R. Williams, A. Yingst, MSL Science team

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Given the diversity of research in the CM group, chosen topics vary widely. We tend to stick to high-impact journals - Nature, Science, PNAS and PRL have been popular - but this is not prescriptive..

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