Water and Brines on Mars: Current Evidence and Implications for MSL

Liquid water is a basic ingredient for life as we know it. Therefore, in order to understand the habitability of other planets we must first understand the behavior of water on them. Mars is the most Earth-like planet in the solar system and it has large reservoirs of H₂O. Here, we review the current evidence for pure liquid water and brines on Mars, and discuss their implications for future and current missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory. Neither liquid water nor liquid brines are currently stable on the surface of Mars, but they could be present temporarily in a few areas of the planet. Pure liquid water is unlikely to be present, even temporarily, on the surface of Mars because evaporation into the extremely dry atmosphere would inhibit the formation of the liquid phase, where the temperature and pressure are high enough so that water would neither freeze nor boil. The exception to this is that monolayers of liquid water, referred to as undercooled liquid interfacial water, could exist on most of the Martian surface. In a few places liquid brines could exist temporarily on the surface because they could form at cryogenic temperatures, near ice or frost deposits where sublimation could be inhibited by the presence of nearly saturated air. Both liquid water and liquid brines might exist in the shallow subsurface because even a thin layer of soil forms an effective barrier against sublimation allowing pure liquid water to form sporadically in a few places, or liquid brines to form over longer periods of time in large portions of the planet. At greater depths, ice deposits could melt where the soil conductivity is low enough to blanket the deeper subsurface effectively. This could cause the formation of aquifers if the deeper soil is sufficiently permeable and an impermeable layer exists below the source of water. The fact that liquid brines and groundwater are likely to exist on Mars has important implications for geochemistry, glaciology, mineralogy, weathering and the habitability of Mars.