Dark microbiome and extremely low organics in Atacama fossil delta unveil Mars life detection limits
Autor
Azua-Bustos, Armando
Fairén, Alberto G.
González-Silva, Carlos
Prieto-Ballesteros, Olga
Carrizo, Daniel
Sánchez-García, Laura
Parro, Victor
Fernández-Martínez, Miguel Ángel
Escudero, Cristina
Muñoz-Iglesias, Victoria
Fernández-Sampedro, Maite
Molina, Antonio
Villadangos, Miriam García
Moreno-Paz, Mercedes
Wierzchos, Jacek
Ascaso, Carmen
Fornaro, Teresa
Brucato, John Robert
Poggiali, Giovanni
Manrique, Jose Antonio
Veneranda, Marco
López-Reyes, Guillermo
Sanz-Arranz, Aurelio
Rull, Fernando
Ollila, Ann M.
Wiens, Roger C.
Reyes-Newell, Adriana
Clegg, Samuel M.
Millan, Maëva
Johnson, Sarah Stewart
McIntosh, Ophélie
Szopa, Cyril
Freissinet, Caroline
Sekine, Yasuhito
Fukushi, Keisuke
Morida, Koki
Inoue, Kosuke
Sakuma, Hiroshi
Rampe, Elizabeth
Resumen
Identifying unequivocal signs of life on Mars is one of the most important objectives for sending missions to the red planet. Here we report Red Stone, a 163-100 My alluvial fan–fan delta that formed under arid conditions in the Atacama Desert, rich in hematite and mudstones containing clays such as vermiculite and smectites, and therefore geologically analogous to Mars. We show that Red Stone samples display an important number of microorganisms with an unusual high rate of phylogenetic indeterminacy, what we refer to as “dark microbiome”, and a mix of biosignatures from extant and ancient microorganisms that can be barely detected with state-of-the-art laboratory equipment. Our analyses by testbed instruments that are on or will be sent to Mars unveil that although the mineralogy of Red Stone matches that detected by ground-based instruments on the red planet, similarly low levels of organics will be hard, if not impossible to detect in Martian rocks depending on the instrument and technique used. Our results stress the importance in returning samples to Earth for conclusively addressing whether life ever existed on Mars. © 2023, The Author(s).
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Erratum
Author Correction: Unprecedented rains decimate surface microbial communities in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert (Scientific Reports, (2018), 8, 1, (16706), 10.1038/s41598-018-35051-w) (2020)
Azua-Bustos A.; Fairén A.G.; González-Silva C.; Ascaso C.; Carrizo D.; Fernández-Martínez M.Á.; Fernández-Sampedro M.; García-Descalzo L.; García-Villadangos M.; Martin-Redondo M.P.; ... (Nature Publishing Group, 2019) -
Article
Unprecedented rains decimate surface microbial communities in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert (2020)
Azua-Bustos A.; Fairén A.G.; González-Silva C.; Ascaso C.; Carrizo D.; Fernández-Martínez M.Á.; Fernández-Sampedro M.; García-Descalzo L.; García-Villadangos M.; Martin-Redondo M.P.; ... (Nature Publishing Group, 2018) -
Article
Inhabited subsurface wet smectites in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert as an analog for the search for life on Mars (2020)
Azua-Bustos, Armando; Fairén, Alberto G.; González Silva, Carlos; Carrizo, Daniel; Fernández-Martínez, Miguel Ángel; Arenas-Fajardo, Cristián; Fernández-Sampedro, Maite; Gil-Lozano, Carolina; Sánchez-García, Laura; Ascaso, Carmen; ... (Nature Research, 2020-12-01)The modern Martian surface is unlikely to be habitable due to its extreme aridity among other environmental factors. This is the reason why the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert has been studied as an analog for the ...