Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kite, Edwin S.; Tutolo, Benjamin M.; Turner, Madison L.; Franz, Heather B.; Burtt, David G.; Bristow, Thomas F.; Fischer, Woodward W.; Milliken, Ralph E.; Fraeman, Abigail A.; Zhou, Daniel Y.
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; University of Calgary; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); NASA Ames Research Center; California Institute of Technology; Brown University; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-3593
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09161-1
• 发表日期: 2025-07-03
• 关键词: gale crater; sedimentary-rocks; valles marineris; clay-minerals; water; EVOLUTION; climate; co2; identification; HISTORY

摘要

The cause of Mars's loss of surface habitability is unclear, with isotopic data suggesting a 'missing sink' of carbonate1. Past climates with surface and shallow-subsurface liquid water are recorded by Mars's sedimentary rocks, including strata in the approximately 4-km-thick record at Gale Crater2. Those waters were intermittent, spatially patchy and discontinuous, and continued remarkably late in Mars's history3-attributes that can be understood if, as on Earth, sedimentary-rock formation sequestered carbon dioxide as abundant carbonate (recently confirmed in situ at Gale4). Here we show that a negative feedback among solar luminosity, liquid water and carbonate formation can explain the existence of intermittent Martian oases. In our model, increasing solar luminosity promoted the stability of liquid water, which in turn formed carbonate, reduced the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide and limited liquid water5. Chaotic orbital forcing modulated wet-dry cycles. The negative feedback restricted liquid water to oases and Mars self-regulated as a desert planet. We model snowmelt as the water source, but the feedback can also work with groundwater as the water source. Model output suggests that Gale faithfully records the expected primary episodes of liquid water stability in the surface and near-surface environment. Eventually, atmospheric thickness approaches water's triple point, curtailing the sustained stability of liquid water and thus habitability in the surface environment. We assume that the carbonate content found at Gale is representative, and as a result we present a testable idea rather than definitive evidence.