| Summary: | Abstract: This contribution reports on the applications of Raman spectroscopy to the analysis of lacustrine sediments, looking at both organic and inorganic matter. The similarities to palaeo-lakes on Mars are considered. The analysis of lacustrine sediments is an accepted method for deciphering the palaeoenvi-ronment of the lake’s catchment area. Each strata of the sediment gives information about the rock type it was eroded from and also the state of the lake, i.e. oxic or anoxic. As Antarctica has long been accepted as a putative analogue for Mars, analysis of Antarctic material may give results that can be compared to sediments on Mars. The Viking Orbiter has detected evidence for 179 palaeolakes in impact craters on Mars [1]. The sediments used in this study are taken from Lake Hoare in the Dry Valleys region of Ant-arctica and Lake Nella, which is a seasonally open lake situated in the Larsemann Hills in east-ern Antarctica [2]. The Lake Hoare samples are from two different boreholes, one in an oxic area and the other from an anoxic region of the lake, at depths of 15 m and 30 m respectively [3]. The Lake Nella core was taken at a water depth of 9.6 m and the results have been used for a depth comparison of organic matter (see Figure 1).
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