Curiosity rover may be 'burping' methane out of Mars' subsurface

[Admin]

A new theory suggests that NASA's Curiosity rover is "burping" the surface of the Red Planet, releasing methane trapped beneath a salty crust.

Curiosity rover may be 'burping' methane out of Mars' subsurface : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

And then there is this https://www.livescience.com/space/m...ous-inca-city-on-mars-in-new-satellite-photos .

Get past the click bait headline, and see the description of the environmental physics that create these patterns.

 

[HobartStinsonian]

I’ll take exception to this sentence, “On Earth, methane is primarily produced by living organisms”. On Earth a huge majority of methane comes naturally from inside Earth’s crust. Natural gas. There is every reason to believe that the crust of Mars may also contain natural gas. When methane was captured inside the Earth during the formation of the solar system, why not also in other planets? And on Titan too?

 

[Sarah Newton]

I’ll take exception to this sentence, “On Earth, methane is primarily produced by living organisms”. On Earth a huge majority of methane comes naturally from inside Earth’s crust. Natural gas. There is every reason to believe that the crust of Mars may also contain natural gas. When methane was captured inside the Earth during the formation of the solar system, why not also in other planets? And on Titan too?

And where does "natural gas" come from?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

And where does "natural gas" come from?

That is sort of an interesting question.

On Earth, the assumption is that it comes from decaying biological matter that has been transported below and trapped below the surface by various geological processes, including silt layer buildup over swamps, plate tectonics, etc.

But, if there always was no life on Mars, then that could not account for what we see on Mars. The methane there would not be from photosynthesis of carbon dioxide and water.

Methane is also common in other planetary atmospheres where we don't think any life has ever existed. We think it forms in space and gets compacted into planets along with the other materials.

So, could some of the methane oozing out of the Earth be "primordial" instead of biological? Maybe. But, the geologic evidence is that most of it can be explained by biological processes.

The radioactive isotopes of hydrogen and carbon are too short lived to look for the "age" of very old methane. But, carbon has 2 stable isotopes, atomic weights 12 and 13. C-13 is rare on Earth. Somebody might try to used the ratio of C-13 to C-12 to distinguish different origins of some methane, but I have never heard of that.

 

[HobartStinsonian]

That is sort of an interesting question.

On Earth, the assumption is that it comes from decaying biological matter that has been transported below and trapped below the surface by various geological processes, including silt layer buildup over swamps, plate tectonics, etc.

But, if there always was no life on Mars, then that could not account for what we see on Mars. The methane there would not be from photosynthesis of carbon dioxide and water.

Methane is also common in other planetary atmospheres where we don't think any life has ever existed. We think it forms in space and gets compacted into planets along with the other materials.

So, could some of the methane oozing out of the Earth be "primordial" instead of biological? Maybe. But, the geologic evidence is that most of it can be explained by biological processes.

The radioactive isotopes of hydrogen and carbon are too short lived to look for the "age" of very old methane. But, carbon has 2 stable isotopes, atomic weights 12 and 13. C-13 is rare on Earth. Somebody might try to used the ratio of C-13 to C-12 to distinguish different origins of some methane, but I have never heard of that.

Methane is detected in Titan and its origin is not biological. Methane is detected in interstellar gas clouds, not biological. It was likely in the cloud of gas and dust when the solar system formed. Same with all elements inside all the planets. Interesting that helium sources are almost always associated with natural gas wells. Not biological, eh? Why assume living organisms were transformed into coal, oil, and gas, when the precursor elements don’t balance with the product elements?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Helium is definitely created inside the Earth - by radioactive decay that involves alpha particle emissions. Alpha particles are just the nuclei of Helium-4 atoms. The uranium and thorium in the Earth are decaying to lead in processes that produce a lot of intermediate elements, and along the way, each initial atom of uranium or thorium releases 6, or 7, or 8 alpha particles that become He-4 atoms. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain .

So, that does collect in places in the crust that also collect methane, such as gas and oil deposits. And, we "mine helium" by separating it out when we extract the oil and methane.

So, could we tell if any of the methane that we are extracting is primordial, rather then the result of photosynthesis creating it from water and carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere and eventually buried by geological processes?

Here is a study of isotopic ratios for carbon and oxygen in the Martian atmosphere: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021JE006992 . It provides some discussion of the complexities of the natural processes that affect isotopic ratios.

 

[Ken Fabian]

HobartStinsonian - The sedimentary geology of oil and gas deposits on Earth support their formation out of biological materials that came from the surface, by observable processes. The existence of non-biological methane on Mars doesn't mean methane on Earth must be abiotic - nor does the abundance of methane on Earth with biological origins mean that Earth can't have sources of methane that are abiotic.

 

[Torbjorn Larsson]

The NASA article by Lonnie Shekhtman is a bit more informative:

Ultimately, a seal formed under Mars-like conditions within three to 13 days only in samples with 5% to 10% perchlorate concentration. That’s a much higher salt concentration than Curiosity has measured in Gale Crater. But regolith there is rich in a different type of salt minerals called sulfates, which Pavlov’s team wants to test next to see if they can also form seals.

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-syst...eping-on-mars-nasa-scientists-have-new-ideas/

 

[Torbjorn Larsson]

So, could some of the methane oozing out of the Earth be "primordial" instead of biological? Maybe. But, the geologic evidence is that most of it can be explained by biological processes.

The radioactive isotopes of hydrogen and carbon are too short lived to look for the "age" of very old methane. But, carbon has 2 stable isotopes, atomic weights 12 and 13. C-13 is rare on Earth. Somebody might try to used the ratio of C-13 to C-12 to distinguish different origins of some methane, but I have never heard of that.

The kerogen cycle of sedimentary organic material compression and heat conversion has long been known to produce most of modern Earth's natural gas deposits. Coal mining show the fossils and the associated oil/gas production. The atmospheric methane has today mostly industrial but still a hefty biosphere production basis.

The known sources of methane are predominantly located near the Earth's surface.[11] Two main processes that are responsible for methane production include microorganisms anaerobically converting organic compounds into methane (methanogenesis), which are widespread in aquatic ecosystems, and ruminant animals. Other natural sources include melting permafrost, wetlands, plants, and methane clathrates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

It is likely Hadean Earth contained primordial methane which was converted into carbon dioxide as atmospheric hydrogen was lost to space. This is an active research area for studies of astronomical biosignatures.

Since cellular metabolism prefer the less massive C12 the negative C13/C12 fractional ratio (compared to a reference) has long been used to identify biotic sources for methane.

12C and 13 C are measured as the isotope ratio δ13C in benthic foraminifera and used as a proxy for nutrient cycling and the temperature dependent air–sea exchange of CO2 (ventilation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_carbon