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Updated: Apr 4, 2026

Evaluating the Impact of Hydraulic Fracturing on Streams using Microbial Molecular Signatures
Published on: April 4, 2021
Biomarker Analysis of Samples Visually Identified as Microbial in the Eocene Green River Formation: An Analogue for
Alison Olcott Marshall1, Nicholas A Cestari1
1Department of Geology, The University of Kansas , Lawrence, Kansas.
Abstract:
One of the major exploration targets for current and future Mars missions are lithofacies suggestive of biotic activity. Although such lithofacies are not confirmation of biotic activity, they provide a way to identify samples for further analyses. To test the efficacy of this approach, we identified carbonate samples from the Eocene Green River Formation as "microbial" or "non-microbial" based on the macroscale morphology of their laminations. These samples were then crushed and analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) to determine their lipid biomarker composition. GC/MS analysis revealed that carbonates visually identified as "microbial" contained a higher concentration of more diverse biomarkers than those identified as "non-microbial," suggesting that this could be a viable detection strategy for selecting samples for further analysis or caching on Mars.
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