Aluminum extracts in Antarctic paleosols: Proxy data for organic compounds and bacteria and implications for Martian paleosols

Pyrophosphate-extractable Al has been used to establish the presence of organically-complexed compounds in middle latitude and tropical soils and paleosols on Earth. As proxy data used to establish the presence of organic molecules and trace movement within profiles, it has proved an accurate indicator of downward translocation in Spodosols (podzols). Antarctic paleosols, dating from Middle to Early Miocene age (15-20Ma), are mineralic weathering profiles lacking A and B horizons. These profiles exhibit pavement/Cox/Cz/Cu horizons, largely with sandy silt textures, little clay, and exceedingly low concentrations of organic matter. Recent chemical investigations of 33 soil samples from the New Mountain and Aztec Mountain areas near the Inland Ice, adjacent to the Taylor Glacier, show that pyrophosphate-extractable Al concentrations vary in phase with organic carbon as determined by loss-on-ignition. While Al-extract concentrations in selected samples are low (<0.15%), increasing values above nil approximately correlate positively with increases in bacterial populations of several common phylum, the extreme high numbers with more advanced biota including fossil Coleoptera. Available data suggest Al_p extracts may target samples which may have undergone minor chelation, and which over long periods of time might have a cumulative weathering effect resulting in the accumulation of small concentrations of organic matter. As such, Al_p extracts may prove useful in targeting the presence of life once in situ investigations of paleosols begin on Mars.