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Metasomatism is a source of methane on Mars
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dc.contributor.author | Rinaldi, Michele | |
dc.contributor.author | Mikhail, Sami | |
dc.contributor.author | Sverjensky, Dimitri A. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2024-04-02T09:30:09Z | |
dc.date.available | 2024-04-02T09:30:09Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2024-05-15 | |
dc.identifier | 300885594 | |
dc.identifier | 738e81a7-2238-4d79-8292-fc20973514af | |
dc.identifier | 85189522511 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Rinaldi , M , Mikhail , S & Sverjensky , D A 2024 , ' Metasomatism is a source of methane on Mars ' , Earth and Planetary Science Letters , vol. 634 , 118672 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2024.118672 | en |
dc.identifier.issn | 0012-821X | |
dc.identifier.other | ORCID: /0000-0001-5276-0229/work/157140687 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29581 | |
dc.description | MR and SM acknowledge support from NERC standard grant (NE/PO12167/1) and UK Space Agency Aurora grant (ST/T001763/1). DAS acknowledges support by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Geosciences program under Award Number DE-SC0019830 as well as NSF Petrology and Geochemistry Grant Number 2032039. | en |
dc.description.abstract | The abundance of inactive Martian volcanic centres suggests that early Mars was more volcanically active than today. On Earth, volcanic degassing releases climate-forcing gases such as H2O, SO2, and CO2 into the atmosphere. On Mars, the volcanic carbon is likely to be more methane-rich than on Earth because the interior is, and was, more reducing than the present-day Terrestrial upper mantle. The reports of reduced carbon associated with high-temperature minerals in Martian igneous meteorites back up this assertion. Here, we undertake irreversible reaction path models of the fluid-rock interaction to predict carbon speciation in magmatic fluids at the Martian crust-mantle boundary. We find methane is a major carbon species between 300 and 800 °C where logfO2 is set at the Fayalite = Magnetite + Quartz redox buffer reaction (FMQ). When logfO2 is below FMQ, methane is dominant across all temperatures investigated (300–800 °C). Moreover, ultramafic rocks produce more methane than mafic lithologies. The cooling of magmatic bodies leads to the release of a fluid phase, which serves as a medium within which methane is formed at high temperatures and transported. Metasomatic methane is, therefore, a source of reduced carbonaceous gases to the early Martian atmosphere and, fundamentally, for all telluric planets, moons, and exoplanets with Mars-like low logfO2 interiors. | |
dc.format.extent | 9 | |
dc.format.extent | 1894566 | |
dc.language.iso | eng | |
dc.relation.ispartof | Earth and Planetary Science Letters | en |
dc.subject | Methanogenesis | en |
dc.subject | Mars | en |
dc.subject | Thermodynamic modelling | en |
dc.subject | DAS | en |
dc.subject | SDG 13 - Climate Action | en |
dc.title | Metasomatism is a source of methane on Mars | en |
dc.type | Journal article | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. School of Earth & Environmental Sciences | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. St Andrews Centre for Exoplanet Science | en |
dc.contributor.institution | University of St Andrews. St Andrews Isotope Geochemistry | en |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1016/j.epsl.2024.118672 | |
dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | en |
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