Salty Soil May Release Methane on Mars – GWC Mag

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.

Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets

Methane is one of the most important tracer gases on Mars, possibly suggesting the presence of microorganisms, such as methanogens, or geothermal activity. Mars Curiosity Rover has observed “methane spikes” which are sudden, temporary increases in methane concentration, but the mechanism for making the spikes remains a mystery.

Using a unique laboratory system, called Mars Simulation Chamber, Pavlov et al. [2024] show that methane spikes may be caused by the breaking of salty soils that seal methane. Their experiments show that transport and evaporation of water from permafrost in the ground can form perchlorate salty soils that can entrap methane near the surface. Once the salty soils are destroyed (the most plausible destruction process is roving and drilling by the rover itself), methane would have released, making a methane spike. If correct, methane may be widely stored in Martian shallow subsurface and could be used in future missions to investigate its origin and as an in-situ resource for humans.

Citation: Pavlov, A. A., Johnson, J., Garcia-Sanchez, R., Siguelnitzky, A., Johnson, C., Davis, J., et al. (2024). Formation and stability of salty soil seals in Mars-like conditions. Implications for methane variability on Mars. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 129, e2023JE007841. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JE007841

—Yasuhito Sekine, Associate Editor, JGR: Planets

Text © 2024. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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