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Old January 12th 18, 11:09 AM posted to sci.astro.research
jacobnavia
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Default Astronomy and Biology

Le 10/01/2018 =C3=A0 22:09, brad a =C3=A9crit=C2=A0:
There is ample evidence for abiotic methane. This has been suspected
for quite some time. I believe first proposed by Soviet Geologists in
the 1950's. Here's a link to a new open access paper detailing
a process for abiotic methane.
/https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14134


1) The process of abiotic methane production occurs at great depth and
pressures on earth. Earth has tectonic plate movements, Mars doesn't.
Since in Mars everything is fixed since aeons, this process should have
finished long ago.

2) Why would an abiotic process have seasonal variations?

3) An abiotic process would yield a fixed methane concentration in the
planet, what is not observed.

[[Mod. note -- Volcanos are an abiotic phenomenon which can lots of
methane, with amounts varying across time/space. I (myself) don't know
if we (the scientific community) know enough about Martian "geology"
(areology??) to rule out current (ongoing) subduction and/or volcanism.

Another abiotic process would be solar heating causing underground
deposits to melt/vaporize/sublimate. We'd expect this to vary seasonally.
-- jt]]