Mining Potential on Mars: Exploring the Limited Mineral Pool of the Red Planet

2023-09-11 07:06:22
With the escalation of interest by major space agencies in the world in studying the planet Mars, and examining all information related to it and its environment, all of which ultimately aim to achieve the projects of the major countries in the world to colonize Mars, comes the importance of studying minerals on the “Red Planet”, which humanity may need in If these settlement projects are achieved. As a press release published on Phys.org on September 7 indicates, while there are approximately 6,000 different minerals on Earth, only 161 minerals have been recorded on Mars after more than 50 years of research, which is a small number. For a planet that has so much in common with our own. The new study identified only 20 patterns of mineral formation on Mars (NASA). Paths of mineral formation. According to a new study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Plants, the difference arose because minerals on Mars have fewer paths of formation compared to those on Earth, although… Both planets began very similar paths of mineral evolution. Following his research to catalog the formation and evolution of minerals on Earth, Robert M. Hazen and his colleagues at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Earth and Planetary Laboratory conducted a systematic study of all 161 Martian minerals detected over the past half-century by Mars missions and analyzes of Martian meteorites. While previous work identified 57 primary and secondary mechanisms of mineral formation on Earth, the new study identified only 20 patterns of mineral formation on Mars. The results of the new study suggest that the future mining horizon on Mars is limited (Getty) Processes did not occur on Mars. Early in planetary history, minerals formed on Earth and Mars in similar ways. For example, the first minerals on both planets likely crystallized directly from cooling magma. It is likely that hydrothermal activity also led to the emergence of many new minerals on both planets. However, the mineral pool on Earth went through extensive stages of diversification billions of years ago with the onset of plate tectonics and the spread of life on Earth, processes that are not known to have occurred on Mars. Although there are undoubtedly many mineral phases on and below the surface of Mars that have not yet been observed, researchers note that the total number of Martian minerals is still likely smaller than on Earth, which makes the future mining horizon on Mars perhaps limited.
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