Water Found in Earth's Driest Place

Two US graduate students and their teammates on an expedition in the Atacama desert in Chile have made what could be an important discovery, with implications for future exploration on the moon and Mars.

Extensive research over the last decade by teams of scientists from NASA's Ames Research Center and other institutions has demonstrated that parts of the Atacama may be the driest place on the surface of the Earth -- their data show it's about 50 times drier than places like the Sahara desert or Death Valley in California, according to Chris McKay of Ames. (Some claim that the dry valleys of Antarctica may be even drier, but it's a difficult comparison to make since both areas receive so little moisture that it's hard to measure). There is literally no rainfall at all, not even fog, for years on end.

But now J. Judson Wynne (whom everyone knows as Jut) and his fellow PhD student Pete Polsgrove, who have been exploring caves in the Atacama, have found water deep inside two of these caves. And that might suggest the possibility of similar hidden spots on Mars where water, and possibly life, could be hiding.

I met Jut two years ago, out in the Atacama, when I was there with McKay and a team of scientists, along with a group of middle-school teachers who were there as part of a NASA education project. Jut, with biologist Penny Boston from New Mexico State University and others, was studying how to find caves using aerial infrared surveillance, as a way that could someday be applied to discovering caves on other worlds.

Jut is a cave research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the SETI Institute, and is also currently pursuing a Ph.D. in biological sciences (with an emphasis on regional biodiversity patterns of caves in the arid southwest) at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff. Polsgrove is also a student at NAU.

This new finding, which was first mentioned a few days ago online on LiveScience, could be an especially significant new discovery. I sent an email to Jut, who is still down there in the Atacama, asking for more details about his work and what he's found, and what its implications might be. This is what he had to say:

"I am essentially conducting two major research projects. One is my PhD dissertation, the other is this work. Please refer to my research page on my website for more information (www.caveexplorer.org). Myself and several colleagues developed the Earth-Mars Cave Detection Project back in 2004. This program was initially developed to systematically detect caves on Earth. Once the caves were identified, we could then inventory these features for significant biodiversity. A friend later suggested that we should do this for Mars as well, and the project was then developed. We are also very interested in applying our techniques to the Moon also. Please refer to my paper (http://caveexplorer.org/pdf/Wynne_etal_inpress.pdf) for more information.

This project is part of a three year program which will focus on studying and modeling cave thermal behavior and conducting aerial overflights of study caves in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile and the Mojave Desert, southern California. This project is administered by NASA-Ames and The SETI Institute and is funded by NASA´s Exobiology Program.

We still do not know whether the presence of water within Atacama caves is a unique occurrence. This is definitely an area of research that warrants further investigation.  We have discovered water/mud in two of the seven caves we are studying.

There are various mechanisms that may explain this. However, there is one unifying theme that ties all of these together -- a highly sheltered and protected environment. The passages within the caves that contain water are very warm, contain little to no airflow, and the dry stream bed containing the mud is heavily salt covered. Unfortunately, I do not want to go into too much detail regarding my hypotheses because we are planning to conduct some experiments and submit grants to support additional research on this topic.

With the recent discovery of salt on Mars by the Phoenix Lander, I foresee the potential for halophiles within caves to become another possibility for life. So, the observation of water within these caves may have significant implications.

The Atacama Desert expedition will end 12 August. Then, five of us will go to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) for a seven day expedition (15-22 August). This will be centered upon conducting cave biodiversity surveys and mapping caves."

(Photos of Atacama caves: top, photo by Jut Wynne; second, photo of Jut Wynne inside a coastal cave near Antofagasta, Chile by David L. Chandler, copyright 2006; third, Atacama cave photo by Dan Ruby; bottom, Jut Wynne and Penny Boston prepare to rappel into an old mining pit in the Atacama, photo by David L. Chandler, copyright 2006)

Comments

[james cain]

Iam wondering if pete polsgrove is from Oklahoma, He is have him E- MAIL Me
Jame

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