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Scientists probing more than a mile deep in Antarctic ice have unearthed a mineral rarely seen on Earth but found in abundance on Mars, Science Magazine reported.
The yellow-brown mineral, called jarosite, requires both water and acidic conditions to form, according to NASA – conditions that are currently difficult to find on the red planet. Nevertheless, after the discovery of jarosite by the Opportunity rover on Mars in 2004, the mineral ended up in several locations on Mars, leaving scientists wondering how the mineral became so common, Science reported.
Some have speculated that when ice covered the planet billions of years ago, dust containing the necessary minerals – iron, sulfate and potassium – could have been trapped inside.
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“Mars is such a dusty place – everything is covered in dust,” said study author Giovanni Baccolo, a geologist at the University of Milan-Bicocca at Science. But while ice might have provided the humid environment necessary for acidic dust to turn into jarosite, scientists have never seen dust and ice react chemically to form the mineral.
But the discovery of jarosite particles trapped in Antarctic ice may support the theory, the researchers reported in an article published Jan. 19 in the journal Nature Communications.
Related: 7 places most similar to Mars on Earth
On Earth, jarosite is a rare mineral that appears in mine waste exposed to air and rain, Science reported. It can also form near air vents. volcanoes, according to NASA. Baccolo and his colleagues never expected to find the mineral in Antarctica, he told Science; but when the team pulled an ice core about 1,620 meters long from the ground, they found traces of jarosite particles, smaller than grains of sand, buried in the deepest layers of the ice. .
After examining the particles under an electron microscope, the team deduced that jarosite had formed in pockets inside the ice. This discovery suggests that the mineral formed similarly on Mars, although on the red planet jarosite appears in “deposits several meters thick”, not as a few sparse grains, Megan Elwood Madden , a geochemist at the University of Oklahoma who was not involved in the research, told Science.
These ultra thick plates of jarosite may have formed on Mars because the Red Planet is much dustier than Antarctica, providing more raw material to form jarosite, Baccolo noted. “This is only the first step in connecting the deep ice of Antarctica to the Martian environment,” he said.
You can read more about the discovery at Scientific magazine.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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