Abstract
The mineralogical composition of the fine soil of Mars has not been determined and remains a controversial subject1. During and immediately after the Viking mission, smectite clays were considered as the most likely Mars soil analogue material (MarSAM), but recently it has been suggested that the most likely MarSAM is palagonite, an amorphous weathering product of mafic volcanic glass. We report here the results of an experimental comparison between palagonites and a smectite (montmorillonite) in a simulation of the Viking Biology Labelled Release (LR) experiment and draw conclusions regarding their suitability as MarSAMs. We have found that palagonites do not cause the formate decomposition and 14C release observed in the LR experiment on Mars, neither in their natural form nor after acidification, and thus cannot be a completely satisfactory analogue to the Mars soil studied by Viking.
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