On Tuesday, April 2, Elisabeth Losa, PhD from the University of Vigo and researcher of the Geological and Biogeochemical Oceanography group at CIM-UVigo, presented the lecture “Evolución del océano en la Tierra y en Marte: el punto de divergencia”, in which she discussed the study of the mineralogical phases present in a crater on Mars.
Currently, Mars has an average annual temperature and surface pressure that allow liquid water to exist only locally and temporarily under anomalous or highly restrictive conditions. However, there is considerable evidence supporting the existence of ancient bodies of water on the planet’s surface, which would imply a wetter climate in the past and a thicker atmosphere that prevented the immediate evaporation of water. New findings on the mineralogical nature of Mars, resulting from aqueous weathering, are providing new tools to better understand the planet’s environmental conditions, both at local and global scales, and to reconstruct the climate throughout Mars’ history.
Within this context, and under the supervision of Luís Gago (Geological and Biogeochemical Oceanography group) and Alberto González (Astrobiology Center, CSIC), Elisabeth Losa developed her doctoral thesis “Meteorización de silicatos en Marte: o litio e os seus isótopos como trazadores xeoquímicos”, with the aim of increasing knowledge about the weathering of basalt minerals and the evolution of thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. Additionally, her study sought to interpret the isotopic evolution of lithium associated with weathering processes and the formation of secondary minerals, with the goal of evaluating the feasibility of applying the tools developed in her work to future in situ sample data.
During this talk, Elisabeth presented a qualitative and quantitative study of the mineralogical phases present in the Gale Crater, in which she used new techniques to obtain crystallographic data, and described a possible type of clay mineral identified and its usefulness for reconstructing the geochemical history of Gale Crater.
The lecture took place at 11:00h in the ECIMAT Assembly Hall and was broadcast on UVigo TV’s Direct Channel 1, and is permanently available on our websites (UVigo TV and CIM-UVigo).
