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Martian Magmatic Clay Minerals Forming Vesicles: Perfect Niches for Emerging Life?
Jean-Christophe Viennet1, Sylvain Bernard1, Corentin Le Guillou2
1Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Institut de Minéralogie, Physique des Matériaux et Cosmochimie, CNRS UMR 7590, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Paris, France.
Abstract:
Mars was habitable in its early history, but the consensus is that it is quite inhospitable today, in particular because its modern climate cannot support stable liquid water at the surface. Here, we report the presence of magmatic Fe/Mg clay minerals within the mesostasis of the martian meteorite NWA 5790, an unaltered 1.3 Ga nakhlite archetypal of the martian crust. These magmatic clay minerals exhibit a vesicular texture that forms a network of microcavities or pockets, which could serve as microreactors and allow molecular crowding, a necessary step for the emergence of life. Because their formation does not depend on climate, such niches for emerging life may have been generated on Mars at many periods throughout its history, regardless of the stability or availability of liquid water at the surface.
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