Discovery could reveal secrets of ancient Martian and terrestrial atmospheres

By By Kim McDonald | 12 Nov 2010

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Chemists at UC San Diego have uncovered a new chemical reaction on tiny particulates in the atmosphere that could allow scientists to gain a glimpse from ancient rocks of what the atmospheres of the Earth and Mars were like hundreds of millions years ago.

 
Dust Storms common to Mars (top) and Earth facilitate the chemical reaction discovered by the UC San Diego chemists. (Credit: NASA)

Their discovery also provides a simple chemical explanation for the unusual carbonate inclusions found in a meteorite from Mars that was once thought by some scientists to be evidence of ancient Martian life.

''We never knew before how the atmosphere could be trapped in carbonate,'' said Mark Thiemens, dean of UC San Diego's Division of Physical Sciences who headed the team of scientists that detailed its discovery in this week's early online edition of the Journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Thiemens says, ''This chemical reaction, which takes place on the surface of aerosols in the atmosphere, not only provides us with an understanding of how these carbonates can form on the Earth and Mars. It gives us a new tool to better understand climate change, as our planet warms and becomes more dusty.''

Robina Shaheen, a postdoctoral researcher in Thiemens' laboratory, discovered the chemical reaction and detailed its importance in the Earth's atmosphere after four years of painstaking experiments in which she found a higher than expected proportion of oxygen 17 isotopes in the carbonates found on dust grains, aerosols and dirt from various parts of the world.

Martian meteorites, such as ALH84001, which was once thought to exhibit evidence of extraterrestrial life, have carbonates with similarly high oxygen 17 anomalies.

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