Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration

Abstract

Permafrost is important from an exobiology and climate change perspective. It serves as an analog for extraplanetary exploration, and it threatens to emit globally significant amounts of greenhouse gases as it thaws due to climate change. Viable microbes survive in Earth's permafrost, slowly metabolizing and transforming organic matter through geologic time. Ancient permafrost microbial communities represent a crucial resource for gaining novel insights into survival strategies adopted by extremotolerant organisms in extraplanetary analogs. We present a proof-of-concept study on ∼22 Kya permafrost to determine the potential for coupling Raman and fluorescence biosignature detection technology from the NASA Mars Perseverance rover with microbial community characterization in frozen soils, which could be expanded to other Earth and off-Earth locations. Besides the well-known utility for biosignature detection and identification, our results indicate that spectral mapping of permafrost could be used to rapidly characterize organic carbon characteristics. Coupled with microbial community analyses, this method has the potential to enhance our understanding of carbon degradation and emissions in thawing permafrost. Further, spectroscopy can be accomplished in situ to mitigate sample transport challenges and in assessing and prioritizing frozen soils for further investigation. This method has broad-range applicability to understanding microbial communities and their associations with biosignatures and soil carbon and mineralogic characteristics relevant to climate science and astrobiology.

Education and public outreach: communicating science through storytelling

“…Several studies simulating environments such as those occurring on Mars, Titan, etc. have been examining the effects of these conditions on microbial survivability ( 65 , 66 ), which has implications for both planetary protection measures as well as searching for life elsewhere ( 67 ). Disseminating such knowledge as well as from other disciplines of science to a broader audience has implications as an educational endeavor.…”