Mars had oxygen before Earth?
Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 4,000 million years ago — more than a billion years before Earth, a new Oxford study has found.
Differences between Martian meteorites and rocks examined by a Nasa rover can be explained if Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 4,000 million years ago — well before the rise of atmospheric oxygen on Earth 2500 million years ago.
Scientists from Oxford University investigated the compositions of Martian meteorites found on Earth and data from Nasa’s Spirit rover that examined surface rocks in the Gusev crater on Mars.
The fact that the surface rocks are five times richer in nickel than the meteorites was puzzling and had cast doubt on whether the meteorites are typical volcanic products of the red planet.
“What we have shown is that both meteorites and surface volcanic rocks are consistent with similar origins in the deep interior of Mars but that the surface rocks come from a more oxygen-rich environment, probably caused by recycling of oxygen-rich materials into the interior,” said Professor Bernard Wood, of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences.
“This result is surprising because while the meteorites are geologically ‘young’, around 180 million to 1400 million years old, the Spirit rover was analysing a very old part of Mars, more than 3700 million years old,” said Wood.
Whilst it is possible that the geological composition of Mars varies immensely from region to region, the researchers believe that it is more likely that the differences arise through a process known as subduction — in which material is recycled into the interior.
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