Mars atmosphere. The imprint of atmospheric evolution in the D/H of Hesperian clay minerals on Mars

P R Mahaffy; C R Webster; J C Stern; A E Brunner; S K Atreya; P G Conrad; S Domagal-Goldman; J L Eigenbrode; G J Flesch; L E Christensen; H B Franz; C Freissinet; D P Glavin; J P Grotzinger; J H Jones; L A Leshin; C Malespin; A C McAdam; D W Ming; R Navarro-Gonzalez; P B Niles; T Owen; A A Pavlov; A Steele; M G Trainer; K H Williford; J J Wray; MSL Science Team

doi:10.1126/science.1260291

Mars atmosphere. The imprint of atmospheric evolution in the D/H of Hesperian clay minerals on Mars

Science. 2015 Jan 23;347(6220):412-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1260291. Epub 2014 Dec 16.

Authors

P R Mahaffy¹, C R Webster², J C Stern³, A E Brunner⁴, S K Atreya⁵, P G Conrad³, S Domagal-Goldman³, J L Eigenbrode³, G J Flesch², L E Christensen², H B Franz⁶, C Freissinet⁷, D P Glavin³, J P Grotzinger⁸, J H Jones⁹, L A Leshin¹⁰, C Malespin¹¹, A C McAdam³, D W Ming⁹, R Navarro-Gonzalez¹², P B Niles⁹, T Owen¹³, A A Pavlov³, A Steele¹⁴, M G Trainer³, K H Williford², J J Wray¹⁵; MSL Science Team

Collaborators

MSL Science Team:
William Abbey, Cherie Achilles, Christophe Agard, José Alexandre Alves Verdasca, Dana Anderson, Robert C Anderson, Ryan B Anderson, Jan Kristoffer Appel, Paul Douglas Archer, Ricardo Arevalo, Carlos Armiens-Aparicio, Raymond Arvidson, Evgeny Atlaskin, Sushil Atreya, Andrew Aubrey, Sherif Azeez, Burt Baker, Michael Baker, Tonci Balic-Zunic, David Baratoux, Julien Baroukh, Bruce Barraclough, Michael Battalio, Michael Beach, Keri Bean, Pierre Beck, Richard Becker, Luther Beegle, Alberto Behar, Inès Belgacem, James F Bell 3rd, Steven Bender, Mehdi Benna, Jennifer Bentz, Gilles Berger, Jeffrey Berger, Thomas Berger, Genesis Berlanga, Daniel Berman, David Bish, Jordana Blacksberg, David F Blake, Juan José Blanco Ávalos, Diana Blaney, Jennifer Blank, Hannah Blau, Lora Bleacher, Eckart Boehm, Jean-Yves Bonnet, Oliver Botta, Stephan Böttcher, Thomas Boucher, Hannah Bower, Nick Boyd, William Boynton, Shaneen Braswell, Elly Breves, John C Bridges, Nathan Bridges, William Brinckerhoff, David Brinza, Thomas Bristow, Claude Brunet, Anna Brunner, Will Brunner, Arnaud Buch, Mark Bullock, Sönke Burmeister, John Burton, Jennifer Buz, Michel Cabane, Fred Calef, James Cameron, John L Campbell, Bruce Cantor, Michael Caplinger, Carey Clifton Jr, Javier Caride Rodríguez, Marco Carmosino, Isaías Carrasco Blázquez, Patrick Cavanagh, Antoine Charpentier, Steve Chipera, David Choi, Lance Christensen, Benton Clark, Sam Clegg, Timothy Cleghorn, Ed Cloutis, George Cody, Patrice Coll, Ecaterina I Coman, Pamela Conrad, David Coscia, Agnès Cousin, David Cremers, Joy A Crisp, Kevin Cropper, Alain Cros, Francis Cucinotta, Claude d'Uston, Scott Davis, Mackenzie Day, Yves Daydou, Lauren DeFlores, Erwin Dehouck, Dorothea Delapp, Julia DeMarines, Tristan Dequaire, David Des Marais, Roch Desrousseaux, William Dietrich, Robert Dingler, Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Christophe Donny, Robert Downs, Darrell Drake, Gilles Dromart, Audrey Dupont, Brian Duston, Jason P Dworkin, M Darby Dyar, Lauren Edgar, Kenneth Edgett, Christopher S Edwards, Laurence Edwards, Peter Edwards, Bethany Ehlmann, Bent Ehresmann, Jennifer Eigenbrode, Beverley Elliott, Harvey Elliott, Ryan Ewing, Cécile Fabre, Alberto Fairén, Alberto Fairén, Kenneth Farley, Jack Farmer, Caleb Fassett, Laurent Favot, Donald Fay, Fedor Fedosov, Jason Feldman, Kim Fendrich, Erik Fischer, Martin Fisk, Mike Fitzgibbon, Gregory Flesch, Melissa Floyd, Lorenzo Flückiger, Olivier Forni, Valerie Fox, Abigail Fraeman, Raymond Francis, Pascaline François, Heather Franz, Caroline Freissinet, Katherine Louise French, Jens Frydenvang, James Garvin, Olivier Gasnault, Claude Geffroy, Ralf Gellert, Maria Genzer, Stephanie Getty, Daniel Glavin, Austin Godber, Fred Goesmann, Walter Goetz, Dmitry Golovin, Felipe Gómez Gómez, Javier Gómez-Elvira, Brigitte Gondet, Suzanne Gordon, Stephen Gorevan, Heather Graham, John Grant, David Grinspoon, John Grotzinger, Philippe Guillemot, Jingnan Guo, Sanjeev Gupta, Scott Guzewich, Robert Haberle, Douglas Halleaux, Bernard Hallet, Victoria Hamilton, Kevin Hand, Craig Hardgrove, Keian Hardy, David Harker, Daniel Harpold, Ari-Matti Harri, Karl Harshman, Donald Hassler, Harri Haukka, Alexander Hayes, Kenneth Herkenhoff, Paul Herrera, Sebastian Hettrich, Ezat Heydari, Victoria Hipkin, Tori Hoehler, Jeff Hollingsworth, Judy Hudgins, Wesley Huntress, Joel Hurowitz, Stubbe Hviid, Karl Iagnemma, Stephen Indyk, Guy Israël, Ryan Steele Jackson, Samantha Jacob, Bruce Jakosky, Laurent Jean-Rigaud, Elsa Jensen, Jaqueline Kløvgaard Jensen, Jeffrey R Johnson, Micah Johnson, Stephen Johnstone, Andrea Jones, John H Jones, Jonathan Joseph, Mélissa Joulin, Insoo Jun, Linda C Kah, Henrik Kahanpää, Melinda Kahre, Hannah Kaplan, Natalya Karpushkina, Srishti Kashyap, Janne Kauhanen, Leslie Keely, Simon Kelley, Fabian Kempe, Osku Kemppinen, Megan R Kennedy, Didier Keymeulen, Alexander Kharytonov, Myung-Hee Kim, Kjartan Kinch, Penelope King, Randolph Kirk, Laurel Kirkland, Jacob Kloos, Gary Kocurek, Asmus Koefoed, Jan Köhler, Onno Kortmann, Benjamin Kotrc, Alexander Kozyrev, Johannes Krauß, Gillian Krezoski, Rachel Kronyak, Daniel Krysak, Ruslan Kuzmin, Jean-Luc Lacour, Vivian Lafaille, Yves Langevin, Nina Lanza, Mathieu Lapôtre, Marie-France Larif, Jérémie Lasue, Laetitia Le Deit, Stéphane Le Mouélic, Ella Mae Lee, Qiu-Mei Lee, Rebekka Lee, David Lees, Matthew Lefavor, Mark Lemmon, Alain Lepinette Malvitte, Kate Lepore, Laurie Leshin, Richard Léveillé, Éric Lewin, Kevin Lewis, Shuai Li, Kimberly Lichtenberg, Leslie Lipkaman, Denis Lisov, Cynthia Little, Maxim Litvak, Lu Liu, Henning Lohf, Eric Lorigny, Günter Lugmair, Angela Lundberg, Eric Lyness, Morten Bo Madsen, Angela Magee, Paul Mahaffy, Justin Maki, Teemu Mäkinen, Alexey Malakhov, Charles Malespin, Michael Malin, Nicolas Mangold, Gerard Manhes, Heidi Manning, Geneviève Marchand, Mercedes Marín Jiménez, César Martín García, David K Martin, Mildred Martin, Peter Martin, Germán Martínez Martínez, Jesús Martínez-Frías, Jaime Martín-Sauceda Martín, Javier Martín-Soler, F Javier Martín-Torres, Emily Mason, Tristan Matthews, Daniel Matthiä, Patrick Mauchien, Sylvestre Maurice, Amy McAdam, Marie McBride, Elaina McCartney, Timothy McConnochie, Emily McCullough, Ian McEwan, Christopher McKay, Hannah McLain, Scott McLennan, Sean McNair, Noureddine Melikechi, Teresa Mendaza de Cal, Sini Merikallio, Sean Merritt, Pierre-Yves Meslin, Michael Meyer, Alissa Mezzacappa, Sarah Milkovich, Maëva Millan, Hayden Miller, Kristen Miller, Ralph Milliken, Douglas Ming, Michelle Minitti, Michael Mischna, Julie Mitchell, Igor Mitrofanov, Jeffrey Moersch, Maxim Mokrousov, Antonio Molina Jurado, Casey Moore, John E Moores, Luis Mora-Sotomayor, Gines Moreno, John Michael Morookian, Richard V Morris, Shaunna Morrison, Valérie Mousset, Alankrita Mrigakshi, Reinhold Mueller-Mellin, Jan-Peter Muller, Guillermo Muñoz Caro, Marion Nachon, Abbey Nastan, Sara Navarro López, Rafael Navarro-González, Kenneth Nealson, Ara Nefian, Tony Nelson, Megan Newcombe, Claire Newman, Horton Newsom, Sergey Nikiforov, Matthew Nikitczuk, Paul Niles, Brian Nixon, Audrey Noblet, Eldar Noe Dobrea, Thomas Nolan, Dorothy Oehler, Ann Ollila, Timothy Olson, Tobias Orthen, Tobias Owen, Marie Ozanne, Miguel Ángel de Pablo Hernández, Hannah Pagel, Alexis Paillet, Etienne Pallier, Marisa Palucis, Timothy Parker, Yann Parot, Alex Parra, Kiran Patel, Mark Paton, Gale Paulsen, Alexander Pavlov, Betina Pavri, Verónica Peinado-González, Robert Pepin, Laurent Peret, René Pérez, Glynis Perrett, Joseph Peterson, Cedric Pilorget, Patrick Pinet, Veronica Pinnick, Jorge Pla-García, Ianik Plante, Franck Poitrasson, Jouni Polkko, Radu Popa, Liliya Posiolova, Arik Posner, Irina Pradler, Benito Prats, Vasily Prokhorov, Eric Raaen, Leon Radziemski, Scot Rafkin, Miguel Ramos, Elizabeth Rampe, William Rapin, François Raulin, Michael Ravine, Günther Reitz, Jun Ren, Nilton Rennó, Melissa Rice, Mark Richardson, Birgit Ritter, Frances Rivera-Hernández, François Robert, Kevin Robertson, José Antonio Rodriguez Manfredi, Julio José Romeral-Planelló, Scott Rowland, David Rubin, Muriel Saccoccio, David Said, Andrew Salamon, Anton Sanin, Sara Alejandra Sans Fuentes, Lee Saper, Philippe Sarrazin, Violaine Sautter, Hannu Savijärvi, Juergen Schieber, Mariek Schmidt, Walter Schmidt, Daniel Scholes, Marcel Schoppers, Susanne Schröder, Susanne P Schwenzer, Cauê Sciascia Borlina, Anthony Scodary, Eduardo Sebastián Martínez, Aaron Sengstacken, Jennifer Griffes Shechet, Ruslan Shterts, Kirsten Siebach, Tero Siili, John J Simmonds, Jean-Baptiste Sirven, Susan Slavney, Ronald Sletten, Michael D Smith, Pablo Sobron Sanchez, Nicole Spanovich, John Spray, Justin Spring, Steven Squyres, Katie Stack, Fabien Stalport, Richard Starr, Andrew Steele, Thomas Stein, Jennifer Stern, Noel Stewart, Wayne Stewart, Susan Louise Svane Stipp, Kevin Stoiber, Edward Stolper, Robert Sucharski, Robert Sullivan, Roger Summons, Dawn Y Sumner, Vivian Sun, Kimberley Supulver, Brad Sutter, Cyril Szopa, Florence Tan, Christopher Tate, Samuel Teinturier, Inge Loes ten Kate, Alicia Thomas, Peter Thomas, Lucy Thompson, Franck Thuillier, Emmanual Thulliez, Robert Tokar, Michael Toplis, Manuel de la Torre Juárez, Josefina Torres Redondo, Melissa Trainer, Allan Treiman, Vladislav Tretyakov, Aurora Ullán-Nieto, Roser Urqui-O'Callaghan, Patricia Valentín-Serrano, Jason Van Beek, Tessa Van Beek, Scott VanBommel, David Vaniman, Alexey Varenikov, Ashwin R Vasavada, Paulo Vasconcelos, Álvaro de Vicente-Retortillo Rubalcaba, Edward Vicenzi, Andrey Vostrukhin, Mary Voytek, Meenakshi Wadhwa, Jennifer Ward, Jessica Watkins, Christopher R Webster, Gerald Weigle, Danika Wellington, Frances Westall, Roger Wiens, Mary Beth Wilhelm, Amy Williams, Joshua Williams, Rebecca Williams, Richard B Williams, Kenneth Williford, Michael A Wilson, Sharon A Wilson, Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, Michael Wolff, Michael Wong, James Wray, Charles Yana, Albert Yen, Aileen Yingst, Cary Zeitlin, Robert Zimdar, María-Paz Zorzano Mier

Affiliations

¹ Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. paul.r.mahaffy@nasa.gov.
² Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
³ Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
⁴ Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA. Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁵ Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143, USA.
⁶ Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁷ Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. NASA Postdoctoral Program, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
⁸ Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
⁹ NASA Johnson Space Flight Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
¹⁰ Office of the President, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609, USA.
¹¹ Planetary Environments Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR)/Universities Space Research Association (USRA) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
¹² Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, México D.F. 04510, Mexico.
¹³ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
¹⁴ Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
¹⁵ School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

PMID: 25515119
DOI: 10.1126/science.1260291

Abstract

The deuterium-to-hydrogen (D/H) ratio in strongly bound water or hydroxyl groups in ancient martian clays retains the imprint of the water of formation of these minerals. Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) experiment measured thermally evolved water and hydrogen gas released between 550° and 950°C from samples of Hesperian-era Gale crater smectite to determine this isotope ratio. The D/H value is 3.0 (±0.2) times the ratio in standard mean ocean water. The D/H ratio in this ~3-billion-year-old mudstone, which is half that of the present martian atmosphere but substantially higher than that expected in very early Mars, indicates an extended history of hydrogen escape and desiccation of the planet.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.