The areas include Jezero crater, where the Perseverance rover is located. Three maps point out the places where the probability of finding fossilized footprints left by any living organisms on the Red Planet could be highest.
Three maps, obtained by combining the study of 18 terrestrial paleontological sites with sophisticated computer models, have identified the places on Mars where the probability of finding fossilized footprints left by any living organisms could be highest. Carried out by a team of experts from the University of Genoa in collaboration with the State University of Milan and the Naturtejo Unesco Global Geopark-Istituto D. Luiz in Portugal, the results have been published in the journal PeerJ. Among the sites there is also the Jezero crater, where is the rover of Nasa Perseverance that is just hunting for traces of life on the Red Planet.
Where there might have been life on Mars
Scientists believe that, in addition to the large flat area of Jezero Crater, ancient fossil footprints could also be concentrated around Belva Crater, at the mouth of the Neretva Vallis river valley. The researchers’ study points to a new approach in the search for life on Mars that does not aim to directly unearth the fossilized remains of whole organisms or their fragments, but is directed at identifying burrows, tracks, footprints and punctures left by any organisms. As if instead of the skeleton of a dinosaur, we were looking for signs of its passage.
The advantages of the approach indicated by the maps
The scientists’ strategy starts from the concept that the ichnofossils, that is, the footprints or perforations, should be preserved more easily. In addition, their morphology “predominantly reflects the biological behavior of the producing organism, making it possible to detect life independent of the morphology and biochemistry of any extraterrestrial organisms,” explained the study’s first author Andrea Baucon, a paleontologist at the University of Genoa.
The maps were created after analysis of 18 paleontological sites on Earth, including through expeditions to Mongolia, Penha Garcia in Portugal and Mount Fasce in Liguria. The study allowed to determine which variables influence the possibility of finding an icnofossil, such as the type of substrate and the quality of the outcrop. The value of these variables was then estimated for each square meter of the Jezero crater. At the end, with the aggregation of all these data have been produced the three maps that indicate the places where it is assumed there may be the highest probability of finding traces of life.
In the meantime Perseverance has taken photos that show that on Mars there was a lake billions of years ago, while NASA has drilled some rocks of the Red Planet in order to understand what is in the Martian reddish stones.
Stefania Bernardini