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Published April 2018 | Supplemental Material + Published
Journal Article Open

Y‐Mars: An Astrobiological Analogue of Martian Mudstone

Abstract

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission has collected evidence of a long‐lasting habitable environment in the Sheepbed sediments of Gale Crater on Mars. The geochemistry of this mudstone suggests that the lake filling the crater in Mars' past had a neutral pH and low salinity and contained elements and redox couples required by life. We produced a geochemical analogue to the Sheepbed mudstone by mixing a collection of its primary minerals to match the X‐Ray diffraction data from Mars Science Laboratory. Here we describe the production of the Y‐Mars (Yellowknife‐Mars) analogue and characterize its properties, including the presence of background carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. We highlight some of the unavoidable issues involved in making analogues, especially for astrobiological applications. The Y‐Mars analogue has a number of applications for astrobiological research, but more analogues are required to properly represent the diversity of Martian sedimentary contexts.

Additional Information

© 2018 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Received 30 JUN 2017; Accepted 16 MAR 2018; Accepted article online 24 MAR 2018; Published online 19 APR 2018. This research was supported by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) under grant ST/M001261/1. We would like to thank David Vaniman for helping us with CheMin XRD data, Richard Tayler for his assistance in mineral sample acquisition, and Nick Odling for assistance with laboratory preparation and analysis. Raw data are available via the University of Edinburgh DataShare Service (datashare.is.ed.ac.uk https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/2303).

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Published - Stevens_et_al-2018-Earth_and_Space_Science.pdf

Supplemental Material - ess2176-t-sup-0001-2017ea000318-si.docx

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