06/17/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/17/2025 03:29
"This detection of abundant, crystalline, pure ferrous carbonate along with ferric minerals like goethite and akaganeite on Mars is a groundbreaking discovery," Mitra said. "Our lab group focuses on redox processes in extraterrestrial aqueous systems, and better understanding this discovery became an important and urgent project."
Mitra's research is challenging the conventional explanations of strong acids or sunlight for the alteration of siderite to ferric minerals and instead proposes that the mineral was oxidized in by brines containing chlorine and bromine salts. The experiments, conducted in Mitra's newly formed Laboratory for Experimental & Aqueous Planetology (LEAP) at UTSA, simulate Martian conditions to observe how siderite behaves in various fluid chemistries.
"If we want to know if life ever existed there, understanding how these minerals are produced and destroyed is a key piece of the puzzle," Mitra added.
The research team's findings suggest acidic conditions alone cannot explain how the siderite was formed. Instead, Mitra's team suggests brines may be responsible for forming these iron-rich minerals under Martian conditions.
"This research changes how we think about Mars' environment," Mitra said. "Instead of just being acidic and unfriendly, parts of Mars may have had more complex and varied chemistry - possibly with liquid water that wasn't as straightforward as we thought."