Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Chemical Gardens as Flow-through Reactors Simulating Natural Hydrothermal Systems
Published on: November 18, 2015
Organic synthesis associated with serpentinization and carbonation on early Mars
A Steele1, L G Benning2,3, R Wirth2
1Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth and Planets Laboratory, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
Abstract:
Water-rock interactions are relevant to planetary habitability, influencing mineralogical diversity and the production of organic molecules. We examine carbonates and silicates in the martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001 (ALH 84001), using colocated nanoscale analyses, to characterize the nature of water-rock reactions on early Mars. We find complex refractory organic material associated with mineral assemblages that formed by mineral carbonation and serpentinization reactions. The organic molecules are colocated with nanophase magnetite; both formed in situ during water-rock interactions on Mars. Two potentially distinct mechanisms of abiotic organic synthesis operated on early Mars during the late Noachian period (3.9 to 4.1 billion years ago).
Related Concept Videos
Conditions on Early Earth
Carbon-dioxide Fixation
Sulfur Assimilation
Biosynthesis of Lipids
The Sulfur Cycle
C4 Pathway and CAM
C4 Pathway
The C4 pathway is used by plants such as...

