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      Subsurface water and clay mineral formation during the early history of Mars.

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          Abstract

          Clay minerals, recently discovered to be widespread in Mars's Noachian terrains, indicate long-duration interaction between water and rock over 3.7 billion years ago. Analysis of how they formed should indicate what environmental conditions prevailed on early Mars. If clays formed near the surface by weathering, as is common on Earth, their presence would indicate past surface conditions warmer and wetter than at present. However, available data instead indicate substantial Martian clay formation by hydrothermal groundwater circulation and a Noachian rock record dominated by evidence of subsurface waters. Cold, arid conditions with only transient surface water may have characterized Mars's surface for over 4 billion years, since the early-Noachian period, and the longest-duration aqueous, potentially habitable environments may have been in the subsurface.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Nature
          Nature
          Springer Science and Business Media LLC
          1476-4687
          0028-0836
          Nov 02 2011
          : 479
          : 7371
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Université de Paris-Sud XI, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France. ehlmann@caltech.edu
          Article
          nature10582
          10.1038/nature10582
          22051674
          d0cb4043-781a-44f0-bbe9-d65f25d692ac
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