The Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) project

• Main Authors: J. Toporski, H. Amundsen, A. Steele, J. Maule, M. Fogel, M. Schweizer, A. Treiman, L. Benning
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Svalbard; Steele; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.568.941; http://physics.open.ac.uk/eana/POSTERS/Session1/The Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) project.pdf

The AMASE project studies the role of biogenic processes during precipitation and weathering of carbonates in Mars analog environments on NW Spitsbergen. Carbonate deposits in the Quaternary Bockfjord volcanic complex (Skjelkvale et al., 1987) include calcite deposits (travertine) associated with hot springs, stromatolite textured magnesite in lava conduits, magnesite cemented lava breccias and ubiquitous magnesite-dolomite globules inside lava vesicles. The carbonate globules were first described by Amundsen (1987) and are the only known Terrestrial analog to carbonate globules in the Martian meteorite ALH84001 (Treiman et al., 2002). AMASE also involves development and testing of instruments aimed at future “Search for Life ” missions to Mars, in cooperation with the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) and NASA-JPL (Steele et al., 2004). Studies of the travertine deposits involve water- and rock geochemical analyses (Hammer et al., 2004) and microbial studies (Steele et al., 2004) combined with modeling of pattern forming processes. Abundant microbial activity is evident both in the hot spring pools and as endolithic communities within travertine terraces. A direct link between microbial activity and carbonate deposition remains to be established. Studies of the volcano hosted carbonate deposits involve