At best, we can hope to drill a few meters to perhaps tens of meters with current technologies.

Yet there could be special geological exceptions where that water could exist as a liquid, and those potential "oases" (within the otherwise frozen deserts of the polar regions) are important targets for astrobiology in the next two decades.

There is also speculation that very young channels and debris aprons found on many north-facing slopes at high latitudes formed when liquid water seeped out from the subsurface. To be liquid at those latitudes requires that near surface water be both saline and warm, but probably still within the range for life. Unfortunately, all of the seep sites discovered so far are on slopes inaccessible to landers and rovers.

One way to have liquid water under the polar caps at shallow depths would be through subglacial volcanism. Such volcano-ice interactions could be going on beneath the North polar cap of Mars today, or even within the adjacent permafrost around the margins of the ice cap.

On Earth, subglacial volcanic eruptions are often associated with outbursts of water that create a variety of distinctive geological features. On Mars, such outbursts of liquid water could carry microbes and their byproducts to the surface where they could be incorporated into ground ice and preserved. Such deposits could be easily accessed by rovers in upcoming missions.

Meredith Payne and Jack Farmer from Arizona State University have been focusing their recent research efforts on finding such environments on Mars. They have studied all available Viking and Mars Orbiter Camera images taken on and near the North polar cap searching for the telltale signs of subglacial volcanic eruptions.

This search has produced several potential sites of probable recent volcano-ice interactions that will be reviewed and compared with similar features in Iceland during a poster presentation today (June 27) at Earth Systems Processes in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Geological Society of America and the Geological Society of London are co-sponsoring the June 24-28 meeting.

"We are presently working to merge all Viking, MOC (Mars Orbiter Camera) and Mars Laser Altimeter (topographic) data into a spatially correlated base map for each area," Farmer said. "This effort will allow us to make detailed geologic maps and establish age relationships between major rock units and terrain types. We have been updating our mapping effort as new MOC and MOLA data become available."

These correlated data sets will allow Payne and Farmer to refine hypotheses concerning the origin of these features and test them through comparisons with remote sensing of analogous landforms in Iceland of known origin.

"Discoveries in the last two decades have greatly extended the known range of terrestrial habitats where life survives," Farmer explained. "Viable microbial communities have been found living in deep (-2800 m) geothermal groundwater at 349 K and pressures >300 bar. Furthermore, microbes have been postulated to exist in basaltic rocks in rinds of altered volcanic glass. All of these conditions could exist in polar regions of Mars today where subglacial volcanism has occurred."

Payne and Farmer will soon begin fieldwork in Iceland to better understand the processes associated with subglacial volcanism and the habitats for life created by such processes.

28-Jun-2001