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New Studies of Martian Meteorite Launched

National Science Foundation

NSF PR 97-50				July 17, 1997

Media contact:
Lynn Simarski
(703) 306-1070/lsimarsk@nsf.gov

Don Savage
NASA Headquarters
(202) 358-1547

Program Contact:
Scott Borg
(703)306-1033/sborg@nsf.gov

NEW STUDIES OF MARTIAN METEORITE LAUNCHED

The National Science Foundation has awarded grants for seven new projects to
study Martian meteorite ALH84001 in greater depth. The grants are part of a
coordinated program with NASA to further investigate possible traces of
ancient life in the Martian rock.

After the announcement last August that the meteorite may harbor fossils of
ancient Martian life, NSF and NASA called for further research into the
evidence. The agencies set up a coordinated, interdisciplinary program which
included joint review of research proposals. NASA announced on June 19 that
it had awarded 16 individual grants under the program.

NSF's seven new grants, totaling nearly $800,000 for projects over two or
three years, will use advanced instrumentation to further analyze the
provocative rock. Some projects will study ALH84001 itself. Others will
investigate analogous features in terrestrial rocks from environments that
may resemble those of ancient Mars -- hot springs and other extreme habitats
of earthbound microbes -- to provide a better context for understanding the
tiny structures in the Martian rock.

Meteorite ALH84001 is one of about 8,000 meteorites collected in Antarctica
by U.S. researchers. NSF is the lead agency for managing the collection and
distribution of Antarctic meteorites, done in collaboration with NASA and
the Smithsonian Institution. Samples of ALH84001 are being sent to the
researchers from the Antarctic Meteorite Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston. The samples, typically only a few grams apiece, are
handled similarly to the lunar samples collected during the Apollo program.

The new research will include scanning the meteorite for extremely
fine-scale alteration of the mineral interface by microbes. Other studies
will focus on the meteorite's carbon isotopes to see if they reflect a ratio
typical of microbial life, and develop a chemical method to fingerprint
biological activity in meteorites using different isotopes of iron, some of
which may be taken up preferentially by living organisms.

Still other projects will look at mineral particles -- oxides and sulfides of
iron -- with potential as "biomarkers" (signs of past life) both in the
Martian meteorite and in bacteria on Earth. Some researchers will attempt
to: fix the temperature and fluid composition under which the meteorite's
minerals formed, presently an area of controversy; develop thermodynamic
models for mineral alteration in hydrothermal environments; and delineate
the rock's temperature history and its past infiltration by fluids.

Institutions receiving the grants are the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, California Polytechnic State
University-San Luis Obispo, Iowa State University, Arizona State University,
University of Minnesota, University of California-Santa Cruz, University of
Hawaii, Washington University in St. Louis, and the California Institute of
Technology.

                                    -NSF-

Editors: For further details on the new grants, contact Scott Borg, NSF
polar earth sciences program manager, at 703-306-1033, or by e-mail at:
sborg@nsf.gov.