Tag: ta1.2

22-EPN3-005: Spatial Relationship Between Biosignatures and Their Geologic Context by Large-scale Geoscientific Mapping at Rio Tinto, Spain

Visit by Alessandro Frigeri (INAF, Italy) and Giacomo Panza (intern at INAF, University of Bologna, Italy) to TA1.2 Rio Tinto (Spain).
Dates of visit: 07-11 November 2023

Report Summary: Since the early 2000’s, Rio Tinto has been a critical witness plate for the investigation of extremophiles and it is recognized to be a mineralogical and geochemical analog of Mars (Amils et al., 2014). The Mars Analog Rio Tinto Experiment (MARTE), in particular, demonstrated that the Rio Tinto biosphere extends at least 900 meters below the land surface with a high potential of anaerobic microorganisms to be present (Stoker et al., 2008). Host rocks, however, are exposed at the surface in sediments and rocks of the Rio Tinto watershed, providing potential for key investigations.

The Rio Tinto 2023 field campaign was held between November 7th and November 18th 2023 at Rio Tinto Terrestrial Analogue. The campaign team was made by Alessandro Frigeri (INAF, Italy), James Skinner (USGS, US), Giacomo Panza (undergrad student at University of Bologna, intern at INAF) and Felipe Gomez as the TA Field expert (Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid).

The campaign focused on geologic surveying and mapping the spatial relationship of the rocks where extremophile life develops today and has evolved through the geologic times. When bacteria proliferate within a solid media in a natural environment, microbial life alters the hosting environment chemically and physically. When the hosting media are soils and rocks, geological aspects like color, grain size, texture, and composition will be altered by the presence of life. Before the campaign, the team prepared a context cartographic base from remote sensing data from which they defined three sites of interest with different geological characteristics where to observe and map biosignatures.

In the field, the team applied traditional geological field large-scale mapping techniques coupled with photogrammetric drone surveys and drafted specific geoscientific mapping themes describing the geospatial setting of biosignatures at Rio Tinto Planetary Field Analogue in Spain.

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20-EPN2-020: Towards Prospecting Ore Deposits on Mars – Remote Sensing of the Planetary Field Analogue in the Rio Tinto Mining Area, Spain.

Visit by Jakub Ciazela and Dariusz Marciniak (Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) to TA1.2 Rio Tinto (Spain).
Dates of visit: 17-27 March 2022

Report Summary: The Rio Tinto area hosts the largest known volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits on Earth. The team has investigated 614 sites along a river bed located 3m from each other. At each site, they investigated 5 random samples for pyrite content. The pyrite content was always estimated by 2 to 4 researchers, and the average for each site was computed. The average pyrite content in the entire investigated area is 7.0 vol.% (12.6 wt.%). We have observed two fields, 30 x 30 m, and 30 x 60 m, with average pyrite contents >50 wt.%, which should be suitable for its detection from the orbit, both with Sentinel-2 (field resolution of 10 m) and Landsat (30 m). Principle Component Analysis of the obtained spectra from Sentinel-2 gives similar results to mineralogical data retrieved in the field during the team’s geological mapping.

By establishing the test field for remote sensing of sulfide deposits in a planetary field analogue on Earth, the team will be able to determine abundance thresholds for the detection of major sulfide phases on Mars and identify their key spectral features. The results will help in 1) more efficient use of the current NIR Martian spectrometers to detect ore minerals and 2) designing new space instruments optimised for ore detection to include in future missions to Mars such as one developed at the Institute of Geological Sciences and the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences called MIRORES (Martian far-IR ORE Spectrometer).

Read full scientific report with kind permission of Jakub Ciazela.

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20-EPN2-015: In-situ measurement and sampling of biosignature-hosting products in support of organics detection in the context of ExoMars 2022

Visit by Marco Ferrari and Simone De Angelis, (IAPS-INAF, Italy) to TA1.2 Rio Tinto (Spain).
Dates of visit: 11-16 July 2022

Report Summary: This project aims at sampling and performing a wide set of VIS-NIR field measurements of weathering products (e.g., sulfates, clays), rocks with hydrothermal origin, and deposits showing evidence of biosignatures. To achieve this goal, during the visit the team performed 195 measurement spots with the FieldSpec 4 portable spectrometer in the range of 0.35-2.5 µm and collected 47 samples in different forms. Among all the collected samples, three of them are consistent rock blocks. This is because they will be used as a test for the laboratory model of the Ma_MISS instrument that will be able to drill them and perform the spectroscopic measurements in the borehole wall.

This campaign will also allow the team to confirm the capability of the Ma_MISS instrument to detect spectral signatures of organics in geological samples containing biosignatures. With the spectroscopic data obtained in the field and the laboratory on the collected samples, the team will build a spectral database that will be useful to the scientific community.

These activities on terrestrial analogs have proven useful for understanding life in extreme conditions and how these can be preserved in the form of biological signatures and detected by the scientific instruments that will be on board future missions to Mars.

In addition, this work helps in acquiring crucial preparation for the exploitation and interpretation of the scientific data that the Ma_MISS instrument will provide during the active phase of the mission.

Read full scientific report with kind permission of Marco Ferrari.

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