Laboratory and field analogs of the Martian (sub)surface: Investigating the stability of minerals, organic molecules, and biosignatures

Abstract

Mars missions and Martian analog systems inform each other in an iterative fashion: the insights gleaned from laboratory and field analogs guides mission concepts while the data acquired by missions improves analog designs. As space missions only grant us a small subset of everything we desire to study on Mars, support from simulations in the laboratory and field expeditions to analog environments is a natural follow-up. In this way we can expand our limited data sets, better interpret the results, and plan the next mission in a more informed manner. Laboratory and field analogs have aided us in our investigations of the mineralogy of Mars, and the search for water, organic molecules, and life that have been some of the primary objectives of Mars missions in the last decades, and questions relevant to fundamental science. In a time of scientific exploration when the frontier is frequented by only a few, our efforts in space exploration are largely accomplished on Earth with relatively low-cost, targeted techniques. This thesis is a collection of four distinct laboratory and field analog studies. It describes several experimental designs used to study the stability of organic molecules in various surface environments on Mars and the significance of those environments to Martian prebiotic chemistry, and includes a field campaign to a Martian analog environment (Icelandic lava tubes) undertaken to gain insight into potential geochemical signatures of life in the subsurface of Mars. The works are presented in the larger context of analogs in planetary research and astrobiology.