Planetary Methane in Ultramafic Contexts: Searching for Cyclicity in Methane Emissions at a Planetary Analog Site in Northern California

Given enduring interest in methane detections on Mars (Mumma et al., 2003; Mumma et al., 2009; Webster et al., 2018; Giuranna et al., 2019; Knutsen et al 2021) and its cachet as a “potential biosignature on Mars” (cf. Yung et al., 2018), we aim to provide crucial Earth analog setting methane flux data, as the scientific community explores patterns and constraints on Martian methane. We will: (1) quantify methane gas flux from the land surface at a weathered ultramafic landscape in northern California, USA; (2) measure concentrations of dissolved methane, acetate, and formate in related groundwaters; (3) constrain spatial differences in methane dynamics across the field area footprint through time; and (4) complete microbial membrane lipid profiling work on priority subsurface region to determine whether or not a significant biological methane ‘filter’ is at work in this setting. We will conduct this work in cold and warm seasons to detect seasonal variation and assess aqueous geochemical conditions that may play a role in methane escape from the deeply sourced groundwater system active at the target field locale. We will resolve methane flux and shifts in aqueous carbon species’ abundances to fill a gap in the scientific understanding of methane dynamics in natural ultramafic rock systems on Earth, and make comparisons to sites of extraterrestrial serpentinization more robust. We combine multiple strategies to quantify the methane flux at the land surface at the northern California field site, weaving together data streams from LI-COR’s portable backpack trace gas analyzer (CO2, CH4), Picarro’s cavity ring-down spectroscopy unit (CO2, CH4), and rich complementary data from benchtop gas chromatography units (CH4, H2). Organic acids in groundwater will be measured using industry standard ion chromatography techniques. Lipid profiling from materials obtained from scientific monitoring wells in the serpentinite-hosted subsurface aquifer will rely on a modified Bligh and Dyer extraction technique followed mainly by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. The NASA relevance of this work rests in the high interest in investigating terrestrial gas fluxes at sites that are apt analogs for habitable extraterrestrial bedrock. Serpentinites are appropriate units for such study, made more compelling by (a) the increasingly well described experimental data and theoretical models for gas generation through serpentinization (Etiope and Sherwood Lollar, 2013; McCollom, 2016; Etiope and Whiticar, 2019), (b) continued interest in serpentine-bearing planetary environments on Mars and ocean worlds as pertinent to origin of life science (Russell and Nitschke, 2017; Vance and Daswani, 2020), and (c) healthy debate and innovative science tied to resolving methane signals in the Martian lower atmosphere and, as examples, evaluating advective pressure pumping of methane from regolith (Viúdez‐Moreiras et al., 2020) and regolith adsorption/desorption processes at Gale Crater (Moores et al., 2019). The proposed work contributes significantly to the state of knowledge in the field: ultramafic rocks host source regions and transfer pathways that transmit deeply sourced methane (reduced carbon) to the hydrosphere and atmosphere (perhaps continuously). NASA Ames Research Center researcher M.N. Parenteau is a key mentor in this work, supporting new skills development in lipid analyses.

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