Time-Integrative Multibiomarker Detection in Triassic–Jurassic Rocks from the Atacama Desert: Relevance to the Search for Basic Life Beyond Earth

Abstract

Detecting evidence of life on other planetary bodies requires a certain understanding of known biomarkers and their chemical nature, preservation potential, or biological specificity. In a planetary search for life, carbonates are of special interest due to their known association with life as we know it. On Earth, carbonates serve as an invaluable paleogeochemical archive of fossils of up to billions of years old. Here, we investigated biomarker profiles on three Chilean Triassic–Jurassic sedimentary records regarding our search for signs of past and present life over ∼200 Ma. A multianalytical platform that combines lipid-derived biomarkers, metaproteomics, and a life detector chip (LDChip) is considered in the detection of biomolecules with different perdurability and source-diagnosis potential. The combined identification of proteins with positive LDChip inmunodetections provides metabolic information and taxonomic affiliation of modern/subrecent biosignatures. Molecular and isotopic analysis of more perdurable hydrocarbon cores allows for the identification of general biosources and dominant autotrophic pathways over time, as well as recreation of prevailing redox conditions over ∼200 Ma. We demonstrate how extraterrestrial life detection can benefit from the use of different biomarkers to overcome diagnosis limitations due to a lack of specificity and/or alteration over time. Our findings have implications for future astrobiological missions to Mars.