Early oxidation of the martian crust triggered by impacts

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Despite the abundant geomorphological evidence for surface liquid water on Mars during the Noachian epoch (>3.7 billion years ago), attaining a warm climate to sustain liquid water on Mars at the period of the faint young Sun is a long-standing question. Here, we show that melts of ancient mafic clasts from a martian regolith meteorite, NWA 7533, experienced substantial Fe-Ti oxide fractionation. This implies early, impact-induced, oxidation events that increased by five to six orders of magnitude the oxygen fugacity of impact melts from remelting of the crust. Oxygen isotopic compositions of sequentially crystallized phases from the clasts show that progressive oxidation was due to interaction with an O-17-rich water reservoir. Such an early oxidation of the crust by impacts in the presence of water may have supplied greenhouse gas H-2 that caused an increase in surface temperature in a CO2-thick atmosphere.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4941
JournalScience Advances
Volume6
Issue number44
Number of pages8
ISSN2375-2548
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

    Research areas

  • TITANIUM ISOTOPE FRACTIONATION, OXYGEN FUGACITY, GALE CRATER, MARS, MELT, METEORITE, TEMPERATURE, DIVERSITY, CHEMISTRY, HISTORY

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