Elisabeth Losa, researcher in the Geological Oceanography and Biogeochemistry group at CIM-UVigo, was the protagonist this Tuesday of a new session of the Café con Sal conference series. With a speech entitled Evolution of the ocean on Earth and Mars: the point of divergence, the expert explained to the attendees the study of the different mineralogical phases present in a Martian crater.
According to the researcher, Mars currently has an average annual temperature and surface pressure that means that the presence of liquid water can only occur locally and remain temporarily under anomalous or very restrictive conditions. However, there is diverse evidence that supports the existence of ancient bodies of water on the surface of this planet, “which would imply the existence in the past of a wetter climate and a thicker atmosphere, which would prevent the immediate evaporation of water”, explains Losa, who also emphasizes that the news about the mineralogical nature of Mars, resulting from aqueous weathering, is providing new tools to better understand the environmental conditions of this planet, both on a local and global scale, and helps to reconstruct the climate throughout the history of Mars.
Within this context and supervised by Luís Gago (Geological Oceanography and Biogeochemistry group), and Alberto González (Center for Astrobiology, CSIC), Elisabeth Losa developed her doctoral thesis Weathering of silicates on Mars: lithium and its isotopes as geochemical tracers, with the aim of increasing knowledge about the weathering of basalt minerals and the evolution of thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. Likewise, her study tried to interpret the isotopic evolution of lithium associated with the weathering processes and formation of secondary minerals, in order to study the feasibility of applying the tools created in her work to future data taken from in situ samples.
During his talk in this cycle, Losa also presented a qualitative and quantitative study of the mineralogical phases present in the Gale crater, in which he 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 the Gale crater.
The next ‘coffee’ will be on Tuesday the 9th
O ciclo de conferencias Café con Sal continuará o vindeiro martes coa intervención de María Oliveiro e Simona Schiavo, investigadoras do Centro de Investigación ENEA -Portici Research Center- de Italia, que ofrecerán o relatorio Efectos tóxicos dos microplásticos no medio mariño. Máis información en www.cim.uvigo.es/cafeconsal.
