Lake Kleifarvatn, Iceland
Scientists are more motivated than ever to explore life on ancient Mars. And what better way to do so than by studying the geology of Iceland?
NASA’s robotic rovers roaming Mars recently provided the best evidence to date of the existence of past life on the red planet.
In September, the North American space agency announced the discovery of: small spots similar to a leopard skin pattern that, until now, were only known as result of life activity microbial. It’s like finding a fossil 225 million kilometers away.
Now, scientists are more motivated than ever to explore life on ancient Mars. And what better way to do so than to study the iceland geology?
It is widely accepted that Mars once had a diverse hydrological landscape. That is, once.
NASA’s Curiosity rover’s camera has revealed some fascinating discoveries on Mars, including . But most of the time, the rover captured especially images of endless sedimentary rocks and an arid and hostile surface.
These signs point to a Martian past of flowing waters and volcanic activity. After all, without moving water, sedimentary deposits would be simply impossible, note or .
Luckily, Iceland’s geology reproduces perfectly these ancient conditions on Mars. As mentioned Mike Thorpefrom NASA’s Goddard Space Center, Iceland and Mars have geologies that allow a direct comparison.
Iceland’s cold rivers carve gorges through basalt, exposing layers of sedimentary rock that originate from volcanoes and were deposited by flowing water. The same geological process occurred on Marsalthough billions of years ago.
The challenge now is to understand How to Read These Sedimentary Rock Layers looking for signs of life. The team responsible for this mission is called SWIFT (Southwest Iceland Field Team) and has been busy collecting samples from the southwest region of Stora Laxáin Iceland, to uncover the ways in which life survives in a harsh and alien environment.
Search for life: a carbon issue
By understanding how life works on Earth, we can apply this knowledge to other planets. To that end, NASA has been looking for “planetary analogues”, regions on Earth that geologically resemble extraterrestrial landscapes.
For example, Meteor Crater in Arizona is studied to understand the impact craters on the Moonwhile seismometers in Greenland are used to investigate earthquakes on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
But finding signs of life on Mars is, Above all, a question of chemistry. The most important thing is the carbon searchthe fundamental element of organic compounds and, therefore, of life itself.
The SWIFT team collected samples from hydrothermal vents, rock walls, river beds and lakes in Iceland in this research. The mission involved scuba diving, long hikes and countless sample containers.
According to one about the project, the lake the team has been focusing on, the Lago Kleifarvatnhas a composition similar to that of the lakes that probably existed on Mars around 4 billion years ago.
Indeed, Lake Kleifarvatn is rich in hydrothermal vents and fine-grained siltstone — which would also have been abundant on Mars in the past.
The samples collected in Stóra Laxá contain large amounts of carbon dioxide, which emerges from the lake sediments. It’s easy to draw parallels with the ancient lakes of Mars, and other compounds found there also likely existed in the past Martian landscape.
Iceland’s geology presents organic and inorganic compoundsas well as minerals essential to life. This research is exciting as it helps to profile life conditions on Mars.
If life can withstand Iceland’s extreme conditions, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Could also survive Mars’ ancient climate.
So, if you think you won’t live long enough to one day take a trip to the Red Planet on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX ships… you can always give a hop to Iceland.
