古代の泥岩に保存されたアルカンの測定された存在量は生物学的起源を示唆するか？

The measured abundance (30-50 ppb) of long-chain (C₁₀-C₁₂) alkanes and their possible carboxylic acid precursors found in the ancient Cumberland mudstone in Gale Crater would have been substantially higher before the onset of exposure to ionizing radiation approximately 80 million years ago. Based on recent radiolysis experiments, we estimate conservatively that the Cumberland mudstone would have contained 120-7700 ppm of long-chain alkanes and/or fatty acids before ionizing radiation exposure. Such a high concentration of large organic molecules in martian sedimentary rocks cannot be readily explained by the accretion of organics from carbon-rich interplanetary dust particles and meteorites, nor by the deposition of hypothetical haze-derived organics from an ancient martian atmosphere. We discuss the feasibility of two additional mechanisms--one abiotic and one biological--that could have been capable of depositing this level of long-straight-chain organic molecules in the ancient martian mudstones: allochthonous transport of hydrothermally synthesized organics and autochthonous accumulation of organics from a hypothetical ancient Mars biosphere. To advance and test these and any additional working hypotheses put forth to explain such high concentrations of primary organics on Mars requires an understanding of the radiolytic degradation products expected for organics preserved in mineralogically comparable mudstones.