Volatile Trapping in Martian Clathrates

Mousis, O.; Chassefière, Éric; Lasue, J.; Chevrier, V. F.; Madden, M. E. Elwood; Lakhlifi, A.; Lunine, Jonathan I.; Montmessin, Franck; Picaud, Sylvain; Schmidt, Frédéric; Swindle, T. D.

doi:10.1007/s11214-012-9942-9

Cited by 38 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 163 publications

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“…Most of this activity would have occurred during Noachian and Hesperian times, but some residual activity could have been maintained until more recent epochs. A total amount of CH 4 equivalent to an atmospheric CO 2 pressure of 0.2-2 bar could have been cycled though the crust through carbonation-serpentinization-methane release, consistently with the present mixing ratio of CH 4 in the atmosphere [Chassefière and Leblanc, 2011b;Mousis et al, 2013].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

“…Methane has been recently discovered in the Martian atmosphere at a typical 10 ppb level [Krasnopolsky et al, 2004;Formisano et al, 2004;Mumma et al, 2009;Fonti and Marzo, 2010]. It has been suggested that this methane is produced at depth by serpentinization in crustal hydrothermal systems, then incorporated to the cryosphere under the form of clathrates, and finally released to the atmosphere [Chassefière and Leblanc, 2011b;Mousis et al, 2013]. If so, methane may be considered as a link of a long-term carbon cycle.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The fate of early Mars' lost water: The role of serpentinization

et al. 2013

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[1] The fate of water which was present on early Mars remains enigmatic. We propose a simple model based on serpentinization, a hydrothermal alteration process which may produce magnetite and store water. Our model invokes serpentinization during about 500 to 800 Myr, while a dynamo is active, which may have continued after the formation of the crustal dichotomy. We show that the present magnetic field measured by Mars Global Surveyor in the southern hemisphere is consistent with a~500 m thick Global Equivalent Layer (GEL) of water trapped in serpentine. Serpentinization results in the release of H 2 . The released H atoms are lost to space through thermal escape, increasing the D/H ratio in water reservoirs exchanging with atmosphere. We show that the value of the D/H ratio in the present atmosphere (~5) is also consistent with the serpentinization of a~500 m thick water GEL. We reassess the role of nonthermal escape in removing water from the planet. By considering an updated solar wind-ionosphere interaction representation, we show that the contribution of oxygen escape to H isotopic fractionation is negligible. Our results suggest that significant amounts of water (up to a~330-1030 m thick GEL) present at the surface during the Noachian, similar to the quantity inferred from the morphological analysis of valley networks, could be stored today in subsurface serpentine.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The fate of early Mars' lost water: The role of serpentinization

et al. 2013

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“…Clathrate hydrates are also suspected to be extensively present on several planets, satellites and comets of the Solar System. Planetologists are thus concerned with the possible clathrate impact on the distribution of the planet's volatiles and on the modification of their atmosphere's compositions [10]. Hence, it is of great interest to correctly determine the amount of species potentially trapped in the cages of clathrates, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This work aims at providing a van't Hoff law expression [19] of the Langmuir constant for single guest molecules incorporated in clathrate hydrates as a function of the temperature by improving the potential model used in the determination of the Langmuir constants as discussed in reference [10], that is by using an atom-atom and site-site potential and by considering explicitly the effect of water molecules beyond the trapping cage and the resulting anisotropic environment. In the present work, the Langmuir constant is determined by taking into account all the external degrees of freedom of the guest molecules, i:e. the center of mass (c.m.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A simple van’t Hoff law for calculating Langmuir constants in clathrate hydrates

et al. 2015

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“…Since these regions are interpreted as being among the oldest of the Martian surface (≈4 Ga old), a possible temporary storage reservoir has been invoked in the form of methane clathrate particles (Chastain & Chevrier 2007;Chassefière 2009). Since these clathrates are suggested to be present in the subsurface and at the base of the cryosphere, it A&A 581, A136 (2015) is possible that they could be transported to the surface, releasing methane due to some destabilization process related to the Martian seasonal cycle (Atreya et al 2011;Mousis et al 2013).…”

Section: Background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the identification of methane on Mars using TES data

Fonti

Mancarella

Liuzzi

et al. 2015

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The presence and variability of methane in the Martian atmosphere has been investigated by several authors and spurred a lively discussion. In this context, we address our previous inference of spatial and temporal CH 4 variability identified from Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer measurements which was used to suggest the possible existence of a martian methane cycle. The importance of the topic requires a clear assessment of such variability to correctly comprehend the possible production and destruction mechanisms of Martian methane. It is therefore important to carefully revisit previous results from a different perspective to confirm them before they are used for further investigations. We here describe in detail a new procedure used to validate these earlier Thermal Emission Spectrometer measurements and thoroughly analyze the results obtained with the revised procedure. In spite of our efforts of defining an efficient data analysis procedure, we have not been able to either confirm or refute the existence of the spatial and temporal variability of methane. Nevertheless, our work has produced new interesting tools, which, with the necessary adaptation, can be of some aid in processing and interpreting planetary spectra and, in general, for all the other cases requiring a preliminary selection of data included in very extensive datasets, which are difficult to be efficiently treated with traditional techniques.

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Volatile Trapping in Martian Clathrates

Cited by 38 publications

References 163 publications

The fate of early Mars' lost water: The role of serpentinization

The fate of early Mars' lost water: The role of serpentinization

A simple van’t Hoff law for calculating Langmuir constants in clathrate hydrates

Revisiting the identification of methane on Mars using TES data

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