Hamilton and others will continue to take microbial samples from the soil and also from the air, as invading microbes may prefer gliding in as opposed to swimming. (Samples may need to be taken from people’s boots too, said Hamilton, to try and spot any stowaways — a distinctly earthly, not Martian, issue.)
Scientists will also sample the lava itself. Mere weeks after Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010, scientists found not only that microbes had colonized the surrounding soil, but that they were living on the new lava flows themselves. “The lava was still hot,” said Mario Toubes-Rodrigo, a microbiologist at the Open University, who explained that the visiting scientists had to be extremely careful. “I think a couple of their boots also melted.”
But perhaps most important, the researchers will be able to trace the evolution of underground ecologies from the very moment a new habitat appears. That makes the subsurface shenanigans at Geldingadalur a rare and nearly ideal biological simulacrum of what may have once happened, or may still be happening, on Mars.
The eruption could fizzle out in the coming days or weeks. Conversely, it could keep erupting for years, perhaps decades, much like the 35-year Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō eruption on the flanks of Hawai‘i’s Kīlauea volcano. If so, this site will become a draw for planetary scientists and astrobiologists alike: a long-lived, safe and easily accessible natural laboratory in which to better understand two planets for the price of one eruption.
There is one critical difference, however: the scale of the events. Mars’ lava flows were jaw-droppingly prolific, often producing enough lava to bury a landmass the size of the United Kingdom in a matter of weeks. That makes the Geldingadalur eruption a “model-scale lava field,” said Tobias Dürig, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland. It’s a Martian eruption in miniature.
All things considered, that’s probably for the best.
Source: https://www.quantamagazine.org/icelands-volcanoes-reveal-the-hot-history-of-mars-20210406/
