Evidence for indigenous nitrogen in sedimentary and aeolian deposits from the Curiosity rover investigations at Gale crater, Mars

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1420932112
• Publication Date: 2015-03-24T03:17:43Z
• Authors: Jennifer C. Stern; Brad Sutter; Caroline Freissinet; Rafael Navarro-Go...; Christopher P. McKay; P. Douglas Archer; Arnaud Buch; Anna E. Brunner; Patrice Coll; Jennifer L. Eigen...; Alberto G. Fairen; Heather B. Franz; Daniel P. Glavin; Srishti Kashyap; Amy C. McAdam; Douglas W. Ming; Andrew Steele; Cyril Szopa; James J. Wray; F. Javier Martín-...; Maria-Paz Zorzano; Pamela G. Conrad; Paul R. Mahaffy; ; Osku Kemppinen; Nathan Bridges; Jeffrey R. Johnson; Michelle Minitti; David Cremers; James F. Bell; Lauren Edgar; Jack Farmer; Austin Godber; Meenakshi Wadhwa; Danika Wellington; Ian McEwan; Claire Newman; Mark Richardson; Antoine Charpentier; Laurent Peret; Penelope King; Jennifer Blank; Gerald Weigle; Mariek Schmidt; Shuai Li; Ralph Milliken; Kevin Robertson; Vivian Sun; Michael Baker; Christopher Edwards; Bethany Ehlmann; Kenneth Farley; Jennifer Griffes ...; John Grotzinger; Hayden Miller; Megan Newcombe; Cedric Pilorget; Melissa Rice; Kirsten Siebach; Katie Stack; Edward Stolper; Claude Brunet; Victoria Hipkin; Richard Léveillé; Geneviève Marchand; Pablo Sobrón Sánchez; Laurent Favot; George Cody; Andrew Steele; Lorenzo Flückiger; David Lees; Ara Nefian; Mildred Martin; Frances Westall; Guy Israël; Christophe Agard; Julien Baroukh; Christophe Donny; Philippe Guillemot; Vivian Lafaille; Eric Lorigny; Alexis Paillet; René Pérez; Muriel Saccoccio; Charles Yana; Carlos Armiens‐Ap...; Javier Caride Rod...; Isaías Carrasco B...; Felipe Gómez Gómez; Javier Gómez-Elvira; Sebastian Hettrich; Alain Lepinette M...; Mercedes Marín Ji...; Jesús Martínez-Frías; Javier Martín-Soler; F. Javier Martín ...; Antonio Molina Ju...; Luis Mora-Sotomayor; Guillermo Muñoz Caro; Sara Navarro López; Verónica Peinado-...; Jorge Pla-García; José Antonio Rodr...; Julio José Romera...; Sara Alejandra Sa...; Eduardo Sebastian...; Josefina Torres R...; Roser Urqui-O'Cal...; María-Paz Zorzano...; Steve Chipera; Jean-Luc Lacour; Patrick Mauchien; Jean-Baptiste Sirven; Heidi Manning; Alberto Fairén; Alexander Hayes; Jonathan Joseph; Steven Squyres; Robert Sullivan; Peter Thomas; Audrey Dupont; Angela Lundberg; Noureddine Melikechi; Alissa Mezzacappa; Julia DeMarines; David Grinspoon; Günther Reitz; Benito Prats; Evgeny Atlaskin; Maria Genzer; Ari-Matti Harri; Harri Haukka; Henrik Kahanpää; Janne Kauhanen; Osku Kemppinen; Mark Paton; Jouni Polkko; Walter Schmidt; Tero Siili; Cécile Fabre; James Wray; Mary Beth Wilhelm; Franck Poitrasson; Kiran Patel; Stephen Gorevan; Stephen Indyk; Gale Paulsen; Sanjeev Gupta; David Bish; Juergen Schieber; Brigitte Gondet; Yves Langevin; Claude Geffroy; David Baratoux; Gilles Berger; Alain Cros; Claude d’Uston; Olivier Forni; Olivier Gasnault; Jérémie Lasue; Qiu-Mei Lee; Sylvestre Maurice; Pierre-Yves Meslin; Etienne Pallier; Yann Parot; Patrick Pinet; Susanne Schröder; Michael Toplis; Éric Lewin; Will Brunner; Ezat Heydari; Cherie Achilles; Dorothy Oehler; Brad Sutter; Michel Cabane; David Coscia; Guy Israël; Cyril Szopa; Gilles Dromart; François Robert; Violaine Sautter; Stéphane Le Mouélic; Nicolas Mangold; Marion Nachon; Arnaud Buch; Fabien Stalport; Patrice Coll; Pascaline François; François Raulin; Samuel Teinturier; James Cameron; Sam Clegg; Agnès Cousin; Dorothea DeLapp; Robert Dingler; Ryan Steele Jackson; Stephen Johnstone; Nina Lanza; Cynthia Little; Tony Nelson; Roger C. Wiens; Richard B. Williams; Andrea Jones; Laurel Kirkland; Allan Treiman; Burt Baker; Bruce Cantor; Michael Caplinger; Scott Davis; Brian Duston; Kenneth Edgett; Donald Fay; Craig Hardgrove; David Harker; Paul Herrera; Elsa Jensen; Megan R. Kennedy; Gillian Krezoski; Daniel Krysak; Leslie Lipkaman; Michael Malin; Elaina McCartney; Sean McNair; Brian Nixon; Liliya Posiolova; Michael Ravine; Andrew Salamon; Lee Saper; Kevin Stoiber; Kimberley Supulver; Jason Van Beek; Tessa Van Beek; Robert Zimdar; Katherine Louise ...; Karl Iagnemma; Kristen Miller; Roger Summons; Fred Goesmann; Walter Goetz; Stubbe Hviid; Micah Johnson; Matthew Lefavor; Eric Lyness; Elly Breves; M. Darby Dyar; Caleb Fassett; David F. Blake; Thomas Bristow; David DesMarais; Laurence Edwards; Robert Haberle; Tori Hoehler; Jeff Hollingsworth; Melinda Kahre; Leslie Keely; Christopher McKay; Mary Beth Wilhelm; Lora Bleacher; William Brinckerhoff; David Choi; Pamela Conrad; Jason P. Dworkin; Jennifer Eigenbrode; Melissa Floyd; Caroline Freissinet; James Garvin; Daniel Glavin; Daniel Harpold; Andrea Jones; Paul Mahaffy; David K. Martin; Amy McAdam; Alexander Pavlov; Eric Raaen; Michael D. Smith; Jennifer Stern; Florence Tan; Melissa Trainer; Michael Meyer; Arik Posner; Mary Voytek; Robert C Anderson; Andrew Aubrey; Luther W. Beegle; Alberto Behar; Diana Blaney; David Brinza; Fred Calef; Lance Christensen; Joy A. Crisp; Lauren DeFlores; Bethany Ehlmann; Jason Feldman; Gregory Flesch; Joel Hurowitz; Insoo Jun; Didier Keymeulen; Justin Maki; Michael Mischna; John Michael Moro...; Timothy Parker; Betina Pavri; Marcel Schoppers; Aaron Sengstacken; John J. Simmonds; Nicole Spanovich; Manuel de la Torr...; Ashwin R. Vasavada; Christopher R. We...; Albert Yen; Paul Douglas Archer; Francis Cucinotta; John H. Jones; Douglas Ming; Richard V. Morris; Paul Niles; Elizabeth Rampe; Thomas Nolan; Martin Fisk; Leon Radziemski; Bruce Barraclough; Steve Bender; Daniel Berman; Eldar Noe Dobrea; Robert Tokar; David Vaniman; Rebecca M. E. Wil...; Aileen Yingst; Kevin Lewis; Laurie Leshin; Timothy Cleghorn; Wesley Huntress; Gérard Manhès; Judy Hudgins; Timothy Olson; Noel Stewart; Philippe Sarrazin; John Grant; Edward Vicenzi; Sharon A. Wilson; Mark Bullock; Bent Ehresmann; Victoria Hamilton; Donald Hassler; Joseph Peterson; Scot Rafkin; Cary Zeitlin; Fedor Fedosov; Dmitry Golovin; Natalya Karpushkina; Alexander Kozyrev; Maxim Litvak; Alexey Malakhov; Igor Mitrofanov; Maxim Mokrousov; Sergey Nikiforov; Vasily Prokhorov; Anton Sanin; Vladislav Tretyakov; Alexey Varenikov; Andrey Vostrukhin; Ruslan Kuzmin; Benton Clark; Michael Wolff; Scott McLennan; Oliver Botta; Darrell Drake; Keri Bean; Mark Lemmon; Susanne P. Schwenzer; Ryan B. Anderson; Kenneth Herkenhoff; Ella Mae Lee; Robert Sucharski; Miguel Ángel de P...; Juan José Blanco ...; Miguel Ramos; Myung-Hee Kim; Charles Malespin; Ianik Plante; Jan-Peter Muller; Rafael Navarro-Go...; Ryan Ewing; William Boynton; Robert Downs; Mike Fitzgibbon; Karl Harshman; Shaunna Morrison; William Dietrich; Onno Kortmann; Marisa Palucis; Dawn Y. Sumner; Amy Williams; Günter Lugmair; Michael A. Wilson; David Rubin; Bruce Jakosky; Tonci Balic-Zunic; Jens Frydenvang; Jaqueline Kløvgaa...; Kjartan Kinch; Asmus Koefoed; Morten Bo Madsen; Susan Louise Svan...; Nick Boyd; John L. Campbell; Ralf Gellert; Glynis Perrett; Irina Pradler; Scott VanBommel; Samantha Jacob; Tobias Owen; Scott Rowland; Evgeny Atlaskin; Hannu Savijärvi; Eckart Boehm; Stephan Böttcher; Sönke Burmeister; Jingnan Guo; Jan Köhler; César Martín García; Reinhold Mueller-...; Robert Wimmer-Sch...; John C. Bridges; Timothy McConnochie; Mehdi Benna; Heather Franz; Hannah Bower; Anna Brunner; Hannah Blau; Thomas Boucher; Marco Carmosino; Sushil Atreya; Harvey Elliott; Douglas Halleaux; Nilton Rennó; Michael Wong; Robert Pepin; Beverley Elliott; John Spray; Lucy Thompson; Suzanne Gordon; Horton Newsom; Ann Ollila; Joshua Williams; Paulo Vasconcelos; Jennifer Bentz; Kenneth Nealson; Radu Popa; Linda C. Kah; Jeffrey Moersch; Christopher Tate; Mackenzie Day; Gary Kocurek; Bernard Hallet; Ronald Sletten; Raymond Francis; Emily McCullough; Ed Cloutis; Inge Loes ten Kate; Ruslan Kuzmin; Raymond Arvidson; Abigail Fraeman; Daniel Scholes; Susan Slavney; Thomas Stein; Jennifer Ward; Jeffrey Berger; John E. Moores; Julie Mitchell; Laurent Jean-Rigaud; Rebekka Lee; Matthew Nikitczuk; Alicia Thomas; Hannah Kaplan; Jennifer Buz; Mathieu Lapôtre; Abbey Nastan; Dana Anderson; David Said; Marie-France Larif; Valérie Mousset; José Alexandre Al...; Jaime Martín-Sauc...; Gines Moreno; Patricia Valentín...; Aurora Ullán-Nieto; Teresa Mendaza de...; Sherif Azeez; Jun Ren; Alankrita Mrigakshi; Birgit Ritter; Thomas Berger; Daniel Matthiä; Maria Genzer; Teemu Mäkinen; Sini Merikallio; Justin Spring; Yves Daydou; William Rapin; Pierre Beck; Paul Douglas Archer; William Abbey; Jordana Blacksberg; Kimberly Lichtenberg; Sarah Milkovich; Jeffrey Schroeder; Anthony Scodary; Kenneth Williford; Jean-Yves Bonnet; Maëva Millan; Franck Thuillier; Mélissa Joulin; Laetitia Le Deit; Tristan Dequaire; Keian Hardy; Hannah Pagel; Alex Parra; Michael Beach; Angela Magee; Marie McBride; Benjamin Kotrc; Genesis Berlanga; Marie Ozanne; Kate Lepore; Ricardo Arevalo; Shawn Domagal-Gol...; Stephanie Getty; Heather Graham; Kevin Cropper; Denis Lisov; Ruslan Shterts; Erwin Dehouck; Michael Battalio; Emily Mason; Hannah McLain; Richard Starr; Randolph Kirk; Álvaro de Vicente...; Scott Guzewich; Kim Fendrich; Jan Kristoffer Appel; Alexander Kharytonov; Henning Lohf; Tobias Orthen; Peter Edwards; Srishti Kashyap; Veronica Pinnick; Clifton Carey; Cauê Sciascia Bor...; Roch Desrousseaux; Erik Fischer; Germán Martínez M...; Richard Becker; Lu Liu; Wayne Stewart; Ecaterina I. Coman; Valerie Fox; Emily McCullough; Raymond Francis; Tristan Matthews; Casey Moore; Jacob Kloos
• Keywords: Geologic Sediments; Nitrates; 550; Extraterrestrial Environment; nitrates; Nitrogen; [SDU.ASTR.EP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]; astrobiology; Temperature; [SDU.ASTR.EP] Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]; Mars; Water; 523; Wind; Nitric Oxide; 01 natural sciences; nitrogen; Curiosity; 13. Climate action; 0103 physical sciences

Significance We present data supporting the presence of an indigenous source fixed nitrogen on surface Mars in form nitrate. This may indicate first stage development a primitive cycle ancient and would have provided biochemically accessible nitrogen.