Page 143 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Orhan İnce - H. Abdullah Uçan, et al.

The Jezero Crater, selected by NASA as the landing site of the Perseverance
rover, is the only known area on Mars where there are magnesium carbonate
units displaying lake-origin features (Horgan et al., 2020). These findings
indicating the presence of carbonate, clay, delta and valleys in the ancient
lake environment provide strong evidence that an ancient lake may have
existed in the Jezero Crater (Horgan et al., 2020). The appearance and
mineralogical properties of carbonate units containing hydromagnesite
(aqueous magnesium carbonate sediments) seen along the inner edges of
the ancient lake environment in the Jezero Crater exhibit characteristics of
lake-origin and have a high potential to carry biological traces that play a role
in the formation of microbialite - stromatolite, which we also encounter in
modern lake environments (Horgan et al., 2020).
Mafic and ultramafic rocks in Salda Lake as an alkaline lake (Figure 2), which are
also present in basin or groundwater systems provide the required magnesium
for hydromagnesites formation; and nucleation is initiated by metabolic activities
of photosynthetic microorganisms and secretion of the necessary compounds
for hydromagnesites deposits (Figure 3) (Braithwaite & Zedef, 1995; Horgan et
al. Tuesday, 1995; Horgan et al., 2020; Russell et al., 1999).

Figure 2. Salda Lake (2021)

Figure 3. (a) Magnesium carbonate samples collected from the coast of White Islands Region of
Salda Lake. (b) Appearance of rocks with magnesium silicate (dark color) content and
magnesium carbonate samples collected from the coast of White Islands Region of Salda Lake.

128 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate