Inhabited subsurface wet smectites in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert as an analog for the search for life on Mars
Autor
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
Wierzchos, J.
Rampe, Elizabeth B.
Resumen
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 habitability of Mars for more than 50 years. Here we report a layer enriched in smectites located just 30 cm below the surface of the hyperarid core of the Atacama. We discovered the clay-rich layer to be wet (a phenomenon never observed before in this region), keeping a high and constant relative humidity of 78% (aw 0.780), and completely isolated from the changing and extremely dry subaerial conditions characteristic of the Atacama. The smectite-rich layer is inhabited by at least 30 halophilic species of metabolically active bacteria and archaea, unveiling a previously unreported habitat for microbial life under the surface of the driest place on Earth. The discovery of a diverse microbial community in smectite-rich subsurface layers in the hyperarid core of the Atacama, and the collection of biosignatures we have identified within the clays, suggest that similar shallow clay deposits on Mars may contain biosignatures easily reachable by current rovers and landers.
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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; ... (Nature Research, 2023)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 ... -
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)