Sulfur- and Iron-Rich Mineralogical Features Preserved in Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic: Analogs for the Astrobiological Exploration of Mars
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Elliptical sulfate-rich features, stained red by the presence of iron oxides, are set within permafrost and carbonate rock at Borup Fiord Pass in the Canadian High Arctic. These features, which vary in diameter from ∼0.5 to 3 m, exhibit the co-localization of sulfur (S) and iron (Fe) minerals, with S and Fe both preserved in multiple oxidation states. Through application of x-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman microspectroscopy, we find that these features appear to encapsulate central cores with abundant pyrite while S0, gypsum, and iron-bearing secondary minerals such as jarosite, goethite, and hematite have formed from oxidative weathering of the pyrite. These features appear similar to terrestrial gossans, mineral features representative of weathered sulfide ores in the near-surface. We use Raman microspectroscopy and scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM) to show that organic carbon is associated with the minerals within these features. The origin of this carbon remains enigmatic; however, we consider the possibility that this carbon, along with etching of the pyrite grains and accumulation of encrusted filaments detected in the features, may be indicative of preserved biological activity during alteration of the pyrite. We also consider how such geological sulfide emplacements and their weathered surface expressions may provide a target for future surface and remote sensing studies of Mars and in the search for extraterrestrial life.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".