Brandenburg_2002_2abstr

 

 

LIFE ON MARS CONFIRMED: THE CI CARBONACEOUS CHONDRITES AS THE MISSING OLD METEORITES OF MARS

 

J. E. Brandenburg

Florida Space Institute-University of Central Florida

Kennedy Space Center

 

 

The discovery of life on Mars, by McKay et. al. (1), based on investigation of ALH84001, a 4.5Gyr old Mars meteorite, is now strongly supported by the discovery of a large number , approximately a dozen, of heretofore unrecognized MMs (Mars Meteorites), the CI carbonaceous chondrites (2). These meteorites are, like ALH84001, 4.5Gyr in age and are 2% organic matter. The identification of these meteorites as Martian has been done based on their detailed isotopic and chemical similarity to the known MMs.

 

The Hypothesis is that the CI carbonaceous chondrites are the missing old meteorites of Mars and are fragments of a sedimentary water-altered, post-accretion “veneer” that formed on Mars during the Early Intense Bombardment period of Martian history. That is, they are formed from the the “left-overs” of the formation of Mars from the the solar nebula, that rained down upon the newly formed surface of that planet and formed a veneer. Based on the fact that This veneer is preserved in the South of Mars but not in the North. Fragments of the veneer were ejected from Mars surface by impacts and impacted on Earth and became the CIs (2). If life on Mars existed at this early time then evidence of it would be abundant in the CIs as in ALH84001.

 

If this hypothesis is correct the CI and Mars should share the same isotopes and while never being melted they should be the same age as the primordial MM ALH84001. ALH84001 and CI are the same age ~ 4.5Gyr, if they are both form Mars then they sampled the same primordial environment and this should be reflected isotopically, chemically and morphologically. New data from ALH84001 supports this connection. Oxygen isotopic data for aqueously altered ALH84001 minerals (carbonates) is identical to CI aqueously altered silicates D¹⁷O =.8 found by Farquahar et al. (6)and Baker et al. (7). Nitrogen and Nobel gases closely matches CI isotopic composition for trapped gases in ALH84001 in 3g/cc mineral separates found by Murty and Mohpatra (8).

 

In the remainder of the his brief article, the full range of data isotopic, chemical, petro- morphological will be summarized as it relates to the MM-CI connection. The Implications of the MM-CI connection will be discussed, in particular the confirmation of life on Mars.