Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars

Edwin S. Kite (), Benjamin M. Tutolo, Madison L. Turner, Heather B. Franz, David G. Burtt, Thomas F. Bristow, Woodward W. Fischer, Ralph E. Milliken, Abigail A. Fraeman and Daniel Y. Zhou
Additional contact information
Edwin S. Kite: University of Chicago
Benjamin M. Tutolo: University of Calgary
Madison L. Turner: University of Chicago
Heather B. Franz: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
David G. Burtt: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Thomas F. Bristow: NASA Ames Research Center
Woodward W. Fischer: California Institute of Technology
Ralph E. Milliken: Brown University
Abigail A. Fraeman: California Institute of Technology
Daniel Y. Zhou: University of Chicago

Nature, 2025, vol. 643, issue 8070, 60-66

Abstract: Abstract The cause of Mars’s loss of surface habitability is unclear, with isotopic data suggesting a ‘missing sink’ of carbonate1. Past climates with surface and shallow-subsurface liquid water are recorded by Mars’s sedimentary rocks, including strata in the approximately 4-km-thick record at Gale Crater2. Those waters were intermittent, spatially patchy and discontinuous, and continued remarkably late in Mars’s history3—attributes that can be understood if, as on Earth, sedimentary-rock formation sequestered carbon dioxide as abundant carbonate (recently confirmed in situ at Gale4). Here we show that a negative feedback among solar luminosity, liquid water and carbonate formation can explain the existence of intermittent Martian oases. In our model, increasing solar luminosity promoted the stability of liquid water, which in turn formed carbonate, reduced the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide and limited liquid water5. Chaotic orbital forcing modulated wet–dry cycles. The negative feedback restricted liquid water to oases and Mars self-regulated as a desert planet. We model snowmelt as the water source, but the feedback can also work with groundwater as the water source. Model output suggests that Gale faithfully records the expected primary episodes of liquid water stability in the surface and near-surface environment. Eventually, atmospheric thickness approaches water’s triple point, curtailing the sustained stability of liquid water and thus habitability in the surface environment. We assume that the carbonate content found at Gale is representative, and as a result we present a testable idea rather than definitive evidence.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09161-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:643:y:2025:i:8070:d:10.1038_s41586-025-09161-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09161-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().