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GoGreenNation news

Fires Burn After Ships Collide off UK, Stoking Fears Over Environment

News Feed
Tuesday, March 11, 2025

WITHERNSEA, England (Reuters) - Fires continued to burn on Tuesday after two ships collided off the coast of northeast England a day earlier, adding to concerns the jet fuel carried by one and toxic chemicals aboard the other could cause an environmental disaster.Following the crash, both crews abandoned their ships and 36 people were brought ashore, the coastguard said. Rescue teams called off a search for a missing crew member from the Portuguese-flagged container ship Solong on Monday.The tanker Stena Immaculate, which carries jet fuel for the U.S. military, was at anchor when it was struck by the smaller Solong, releasing fuel into the sea.Equipment to minimise pollution at sea, such as spray dispersants for oil spills and containment booms, were on standby, said the British government, as its agencies prepared for action to protect the North Sea environment and wildlife.The potential environmental impact was being assessed, coordinated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and an East of England environmental group, and the situation was being monitored overhead by plane, the government said.Two maritime security sources said there was no indication that malicious activity or actors were involved in the incident.The Stena Immaculate was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 segregated cargo tanks, but it was unclear how much of it was spilt after at least one tank was hit, Crowley, the U.S. logistics group which operated the vessel, said on Monday.Onboard the Solong were 15 containers of sodium cyanide, a toxic chemical used mainly in gold mining, and an unknown quantity of alcohol, according to a casualty report from maritime data provider Lloyd's List Intelligence.Those cargoes could pollute the sea, harming large colonies of protected seabirds including puffins and gannets which live on the coast in the area, and the fish on which they feed.The crash occurred on Monday morning in a busy waterway, prompting a significant rescue response from British teams who sent aircraft, lifeboats and other vessels.While Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch will gather initial evidence, overall responsibility for investigating the crash lies with the U.S. and Portuguese authorities, the flag states of the vessels.(Writing by Sarah Young; additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, editing by Paul Sandle and Bernadette Baum)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

By Phil NobleWITHERNSEA, England (Reuters) - Fires continued to burn on Tuesday after two ships collided off the coast of northeast England a day...

WITHERNSEA, England (Reuters) - Fires continued to burn on Tuesday after two ships collided off the coast of northeast England a day earlier, adding to concerns the jet fuel carried by one and toxic chemicals aboard the other could cause an environmental disaster.

Following the crash, both crews abandoned their ships and 36 people were brought ashore, the coastguard said. Rescue teams called off a search for a missing crew member from the Portuguese-flagged container ship Solong on Monday.

The tanker Stena Immaculate, which carries jet fuel for the U.S. military, was at anchor when it was struck by the smaller Solong, releasing fuel into the sea.

Equipment to minimise pollution at sea, such as spray dispersants for oil spills and containment booms, were on standby, said the British government, as its agencies prepared for action to protect the North Sea environment and wildlife.

The potential environmental impact was being assessed, coordinated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and an East of England environmental group, and the situation was being monitored overhead by plane, the government said.

Two maritime security sources said there was no indication that malicious activity or actors were involved in the incident.

The Stena Immaculate was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 segregated cargo tanks, but it was unclear how much of it was spilt after at least one tank was hit, Crowley, the U.S. logistics group which operated the vessel, said on Monday.

Onboard the Solong were 15 containers of sodium cyanide, a toxic chemical used mainly in gold mining, and an unknown quantity of alcohol, according to a casualty report from maritime data provider Lloyd's List Intelligence.

Those cargoes could pollute the sea, harming large colonies of protected seabirds including puffins and gannets which live on the coast in the area, and the fish on which they feed.

The crash occurred on Monday morning in a busy waterway, prompting a significant rescue response from British teams who sent aircraft, lifeboats and other vessels.

While Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch will gather initial evidence, overall responsibility for investigating the crash lies with the U.S. and Portuguese authorities, the flag states of the vessels.

(Writing by Sarah Young; additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, editing by Paul Sandle and Bernadette Baum)

Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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Your Clothes Are Shedding Bits of Plastic. Here’s What People Are Doing About It This Earth Day

Plastic is everywhere — and yet some people may be surprised at how much they actually wear

Bottles and bags, food wrappers and straws. Piping, packaging, toys and trays. Plastic is everywhere — and yet some people may be surprised at how much they actually wear.A typical closet is loaded with plastic, woven into polyester activewear, acrylic sweaters, nylon swimsuits and stretchy socks — and it’s shedding into the environment nonstop.Even natural fabrics shed fibers and have chemicals that can leach into the environment. But polyester is the most widely used fiber on Earth, and along with other synthetic fibers accounts for about two-thirds of production worldwide. Tuesday is Earth Day, when people worldwide contemplate ways to reduce their impact on the planet.“Everyone who wears and launders clothing is part of this problem but everyone who wears and launders clothing can be part of the solutions,” said Rachael Z. Miller, founder of Vermont-based Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean.Simple changes like washing clothes less and using cold water instead of hot can help reduce the shedding of fibers. More challenging is that textiles need to be produced and used in a more sustainable way, said Elisa Tonda at the UN Environment Programme. For example, designing clothes that shed fewer microfibers and are high-quality to last longer, said Tonda, who leads the resources and markets branch. What to do? Start by changing habits The easiest solution is to wash clothes less often, making for less of the friction that breaks fibers apart, said Anja Brandon, director of plastics policy at Ocean Conservancy.“They get tumbled and tossed around with a bunch of soaps, really designed to shake things up to get out dirt and stains,” Brandon said. Miller uses a stain stick to spot-clean. Both say that when clothes are washed, they shed less when put in cold water in full loads to reduce friction, on a shorter cycle, then hung to dry.Inspired by the way coral filters the ocean, Miller invented the Cora Ball, a laundry ball that can be tossed into the washer to cut down on clothes banging into each other. It also catches microfibers. (A portion of the proceeds goes to the Rozalia Project.) Another option is to put synthetic fabrics in a washing bag that captures fibers.Miller said people don't need to rush to throw out clothing that's more likely to shed. She owns fleece jackets herself. Instead, she suggested such clothing can be worn indoors only or outside with a layer on top, and it's worth thinking twice about acquiring more garments like that.“I try not to guilt or panic people because a lot of this information is very new,” Miller said. “And so we might as well just say, ‘OK, I got it. How can I be strategic about what I’ve got?’” A push to require filters Filters can be added to washers to capture microfibers. Samsung Electronics collaborated with Patagonia and the global conservation organization Ocean Wise to launch one in 2023. It's now sold in more than 20 countries for front-load washers. Bosch recently launched a microfiber filter in Europe for washers.France was first to adopt a law to mandate that new washing machines sold in the country have a microfiber filter, though implementation has been delayed.In the U.S., efforts to mandate filters in states have failed. California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill in 2023, saying he was concerned about the cost to consumers and he wants to incentivize, not mandate, technologies to remove microfibers in wastewater. In Oregon, state Sen. Deb Patterson proposed a bill this year requiring microfiber filters on new washers sold in that state after she came across the technology in Canada. Patterson said the bill doesn't have enough support yet but she'll keep trying. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers opposes the proposals, saying it's concerned about consumer costs and filter effectiveness.Some big brands are testing their fabrics to help researchers understand fiber fragmentation, including Adidas, Nike, Patagonia and Under Armour.They're among more than 90 brands, retailers and manufacturers to partner with The Microfibre Consortium in the United Kingdom, founded in 2018 to do research and offer solutions to transform textile production — including reducing fiber breakup.Nearly 1,500 fabrics have been tested. None are the same, making it a tough problem to solve, consortium CEO Kelly Sheridan said. Patagonia has been a leader in trying to stop the spread of synthetic fiber waste into air and water, saying it's up to garment brands to prevent it at the source since cleaning up microplastics in the environment is not yet possible. It paid for its own research starting a decade ago on the implication of its clothes. The company worked with suppliers to choose fabrics and dyes and to finish their clothing in ways that reduce shedding. They collaborated on new filtration technologies for washers, textile mills and municipal systems.One of their best-known styles is something called the “better sweater" that shifts from virgin polyester to recycled polyester to cut shedding by about 40%, said Matt Dwyer, vice president of global product footprint. And at textile mills, there's a prewash at the factory that can capture that first big shed, he added.Dwyer is optimistic about progress.“There’s a whole lot of smart people, not just understanding the problem and the scope of the problem, but also looking for solutions all the way through the manufacturing cycle and use phase,” he said. “Compared to 10 years ago, it’s a whole new world.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Chemicals
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Potentially Harmful Chemicals Found In Kids' Mattresses

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 22, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Babies and toddlers could be exposed to harmful chemicals while...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 22, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Babies and toddlers could be exposed to harmful chemicals while they sleep, due to compounds found in their mattresses, two new studies say.Air samples taken from 25 children’s bedrooms revealed elevated levels of more than two dozen phthalates, flame retardants and other potentially hazardous chemicals, one of the studies says.In a second study, researchers analyzed 16 newly purchased children’s mattresses and confirmed they are likely the major source of these chemical in kids’ bedrooms.When researchers simulated a child’s body temperature and weight on the mattresses, chemical emissions increased dramatically, according to the study in Environmental Science & Technology."Sleep is vital for brain development, particularly for infants and toddlers,” said senior researcher Miriam Diamond, a professor of environmental science at the University of Toronto.“However, our research suggests that many mattresses contain chemicals that can harm kids’ brains,” she added in a news release. “This is a wake-up call for manufacturers and policymakers to ensure our children’s beds are safe and support healthy brain development.”The phthalates and flame retardants measured in this study are hormone disruptors, researchers said. hormone disruptors — chemicals that interfere with the body's own hormone system — have been linked to brain concerns including learning disorders, reduced IQ, behavioral problems and impaired memory.Children are uniquely vulnerable to exposure from these chemicals, because their brains are still developing and they have breathing rates 10 times higher than adults, researchers said.Kids also have more permeable skin and three times the skin surface area relative to their body weight compared to adults, researchers added.The children’s bedrooms were located in Toronto and Ottawa in Canada, and all of the mattresses were purchased in Canada, researchers noted.However, most of the mattresses contained materials sourced from the U.S., Mexico and other countries, and these results are likely to apply to mattresses purchased throughout North America, researchers said."Parents should be able to lay their children down for sleep knowing they are safe and snug,” researcher Arlene Blum, executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, said in a news release.“Flame retardants have a long history of harming our children’s cognitive function and ability to learn,” she said. “It’s concerning that these chemicals are still being found in children’s mattresses even though we know they have no proven fire-safety benefit, and aren’t needed to comply with flammability standards.”Manufacturers should be more vigilant regarding chemicals used in children’s mattresses, and stronger regulations on their use are needed, researchers argued.In the meantime, researchers said parents can reduce children’s exposure to these chemicals by decluttering their sleeping area — removing unnecessary pillows, blankets and toys.Parents should frequently wash and refresh kids’ bedding and bedclothes, since these can provide a protective barrier against mattress chemicals, researchers added.Undyed or neutral color fabrics are likely safer, because they don’t need chemicals called UV filters that are added to strong colors to protect them against fading in sunlight, researchers said.SOURCE: Green Science Policy Institute, news release, April 15, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Chemicals
Health
Technology

Fears that UK military bases may be leaking toxic ‘forever chemicals’ into drinking water

Bases in Norfolk, Devon and Hampshire face MoD investigation over possible leaching of dangerous PFAS into environmentThree UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats. Continue reading...

Three UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats.RAF Marham and AAC Middle Wallop lie within drinking water safeguard zones. RM Chivenor borders protected shellfish waters, a special area of conservation, and the River Taw – an important salmon river.PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of synthetic chemicals widely used in firefighting foams and industrial processes as well as in aconsumer products including waterproof fabrics, non-stick cookware, cosmetics and food packaging. They are known as forever chemicals because they do not break down easily in the environment, and have been found polluting soil and water across the world. Some PFAS build up in the human body over time and have been linked to a range of serious health problems including cancers, immune system disruption and reproductive disorders.Military bases with airfields have used firefighting foams laden with PFAS for decades. Certain chemicals in foams including PFOS, PFOA and PFHxS have been linked to diseases and banned, but they remain in the environment.Prof Hans Peter Arp, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said contamination at UK military sites would not be surprising. “Most, if not all, military bases in Europe and around the world have used vast quantities of firefighting foams that contain PFAS,” he said. “They now have substantial PFAS concentrations in the soil and groundwater beneath them, as well as soaked into the concrete of their buildings.”He warned that PFAS pollution will continue for “decades to centuries” unless immediate local clean-up actions are taken. “These PFAS that are leaching now likely took several decades to get there. There are more PFAS to come.”RAF Puma helicopters above AAC Middle Wallop, Hampshire. Photograph: Neil Watkin/AlamyThis month the Environmental Audit Committee launched a formal inquiry into PFAS contamination and regulation across the UK. Campaigners and scientists warn that until the full scale of PFAS pollution is understood and addressed, the threat to human health and the environment will continue to grow.Alex Ford, professor of biology at the University of Portsmouth, said: “The EA has now identified thousands of high-risk sites around the UK with elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds. These forever chemicals are being detected in our soils, rivers, groundwater, our wildlife – and us.“It is very worrying to hear PFAS is being detected … close to drinking water sources. The quicker we get this large family of chemicals banned the better, as their legacy will outlive everybody alive today.”He added that the cost of cleaning up these pollutants could run into the billions – costs that, he argued, should be footed by the chemical industry.Not all water treatment works can remove PFAS, and upgrades would be costly. A spokesperson for Water UK, which represents the water industry, said: “PFAS pollution is a huge global challenge. We want to see PFAS banned and the development of a national plan to remove it from the environment, which should be paid for by manufacturers.”Prof Crispin Halsall, an environmental chemist at Lancaster University, called for greater transparency and collaboration. “The MoD shouldn’t try to hide things. They should come clean and set up monitoring,” he said.The UK’s monitoring of PFAS is trailing behind the US, where contamination on military sites has been the focus of billions of dollars in federal spending on testing and clean-up operations.In July, the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Army launched a joint project to sample private drinking-water wells near army installations. UK authorities only recently began to investigate the scale of the problem.Brad Creacey, a former US air force firefighter, spent decades training with firefighting foam on military bases across the US and Europe. During fire exercises, Creacey and his colleagues would ignite contaminated jet fuel and extinguish it with AFFF (aqueous film-forming foams) – often wearing old suits that were soaked and never cleaned. On one occasion he was doused in the foams for fun.Twenty years after he had stopped working with the foams, a blood test revealed that Creacey still had high PFOS levels in his blood. He has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and now suffers from Hashimoto’s disease, high cholesterol and persistent fatigue.“We’ve taken on too much of a lackadaisical attitude about this contamination,” he said. “Unless this is taken seriously, we’re doomed.”Creacey is pursuing compensation through the US Department of Veterans Affairs and a separate lawsuit against 3M and DuPont.Pete Thompson is a former Royal Air Force firefighter who served at several UK airbases including RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. During his service he regularly used firefighting foams in training exercises and equipment tests, and said they usually sprayed them directly on to grass fields with no containment.“We used the foam in the back of what was called a TACR 1 – basically a Land Rover with a 450-litre tank of premixed foam on the back. Every six months we had to do a production test to prove that the system worked. That production test we just produced on to the grass … there was no way of stopping it going anywhere other than just draining in through the ground.”Calm waters at the mouth of the estuary where the River Taw meets the River Torridge in Chivenor, North Devon. Photograph: Terry Mathews/AlamyThe MoD is working with the EA to assess its sites, and work has begun to investigate whether to restrict PFAS in firefighting foams. Military sites are not the only sources of PFAS pollution – commercial airports, firefighting training grounds, manufacturers, landfills, paper mills and metal plating plants can also create contamination problems.An EA spokesperson said: “The global science on PFAS is evolving rapidly, and we are undertaking a multi-year programme to better understand sources of PFAS pollution in England. We have developed a risk screening approach to identify potential sources of PFAS pollution and prioritise the sites for further investigation. We have used this tool to assist the MoD in developing its programme of voluntary investigations and risk assessments.”A government spokesperson said: “There is no evidence that drinking water from our taps exceeds the safe levels of PFAS, as set out by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.“Our rapid review of the Environ­mental Improvement Plan will look at the risks posed by PFAS and how best to tackle them to deliver our legally binding targets to save nature.”The guidelines for 48 types of PFAS in drinking water is 0.1 micrograms per litre (100 nanograms per litre).Earlier this year, Watershed Investigations uncovered MoD documents raising concerns that some RAF bases might be hotspots of forever chemical pollution. In 2022, the Guardian reported that Duxford airfield – a former RAF base now owned by the Imperial War Museum – was probably the source of PFOS-contaminated drinking water in South Cambridgeshire. The site is now under investigation by the EA.Patrick Byrne, professor of water science at Liverpool John Moores University, said current monitoring efforts only scratch the surface. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg. We’re only monitoring a handful of PFAS compounds. There are many others we don’t yet fully understand or detect.“There are tests that measure the total PFAS load in water, and we’re finding huge discrepancies between those results and the levels of individual compounds. That tells us there’s a lot more PFAS in the environment than we know.”Even where testing is under way, labs are overwhelmed. “The Environment Agency’s lab is inundated. Private labs can’t keep up either,” he said. “Analytical technology is improving fast – but we’re racing to keep pace.”

Chemicals
Water

In East Palestine Derailment Trial, Railroad and Chemical Maker Agree on Who Pays Residents

Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with one of the two companies it has been trying to force to help pay for the $600 million class-action settlement it agreed to over its disastrous 2023 train derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and the toxic chemicals that were released and burned

Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with one of two companies about how much each side will help pay for a $600 million class-action settlement, which the railroad agreed to after the disastrous 2023 Ohio train derailment and toxic chemicals that were released and burned.This lawsuit doesn’t change anything about how much money people will receive from the settlement or any payments to the village of East Palestine or anyone else — those are all established in various settlement agreements. This case only affects which companies have to write the checks to pay for the class-action settlement, which is separate from the cost of the massive environmental cleanup.The railroad and OxyVinyls, the chemical company that made the vinyl chloride that was released and burned after the derailment, announced the settlement Thursday in the midst of the ongoing trial over who should pay people affected by the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.The two companies didn't disclose any details of the agreement in their brief statement.The third company involved in the lawsuit, GATX, which owned the railcar that caused the derailment, declined to comment on the settlement. The case is expected to go to the jury next week in a trial that began late last month.Residents are still waiting to receive most of the money from the settlement because of pending appeals, although some payments have started to go out.After the train derailed in East Palestine, an assortment of chemicals spilled and caught fire. Then three days later, officials blew open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride because they feared those cars might explode, generating a massive black plume of smoke that spread over the area and forced evacuations. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed in its investigation that the vent-and-burn operation was unnecessary because the tank cars were starting to cool off and the railroad failed to listen to the advice from OxyVinyls’ experts or share their opinions with the officials who made the decision.But during the trial, Norfolk Southern raised questions about conflicting information that OxyVinyls' representatives on scene and at headquarters provided as officials were deciding whether to release and burn the vinyl chloride.Norfolk Southern has said all along that it believes OxyVinyls should help pay because the railroad says the chemical manufacturer provided inconsistent and inaccurate information about its vinyl chloride before officials decided to burn it.Last year, Norfolk Southern lost a similar lawsuit when it tried to force GATX and OxyVinyls to help pay for the environmental cleanup after the derailment, which has cost the Atlanta-based railroad more than $1 billion. It made similar arguments in this trial to get help paying for the class-action settlement.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Chemicals
Transportation

NASA Rover Finds Fresh Evidence of the Warm and Wet Past of Mars

By Will DunhamWASHINGTON (Reuters) -A mineral called siderite found abundantly in rock drilled by a NASA rover on the surface of Mars is providing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A mineral called siderite found abundantly in rock drilled by a NASA rover on the surface of Mars is providing fresh evidence of the planet's warmer and wetter ancient past when it boasted substantial bodies of water and potentially harbored life.The Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012 to explore whether Earth's planetary neighbor was ever able to support microbial life, found the mineral in rock samples drilled at three locations in 2022 and 2023 inside Gale crater, a large impact basin with a mountain in the middle.Siderite is an iron carbonate mineral. Its presence in sedimentary rocks formed billions of years ago offers evidence that Mars once had a dense atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, a gas that would have warmed the planet through the greenhouse effect to the point that it could sustain bodies of liquid water on its surface.There are features on the Martian landscape that many scientists have interpreted as signs that liquid water once flowed across its surface, with potential oceans, lakes and rivers considered as possible habitats for past microbial life.Carbon dioxide is the main climate-regulating greenhouse gas on Earth, as it is on Mars and Venus. Its presence in the atmosphere traps heat from the sun, warming the climate.Until now, evidence indicating the Martian atmosphere previously was rich in carbon dioxide has been sparse. The hypothesis is that when the atmosphere - for reasons not fully understood - evolved from thick and rich in carbon dioxide to thin and starved of this gas, the carbon through geochemical processes became entombed in rocks in the planet's crust as a carbonate mineral.The samples obtained by Curiosity, which drills 1.2 to 1.6 inches (3-4 centimeters) down into rock to study its chemical and mineral composition, lend weight to this notion. The samples contained up to 10.5% siderite by weight, as determined by an instrument onboard the car-sized, six-wheeled rover."One of the longstanding mysteries in the study of Martian planetary evolution and habitability is: if large amounts of carbon dioxide were required to warm the planet and stabilize liquid water, why are there so few detections of carbonate minerals on the Martian surface?" said University of Calgary geochemist Benjamin Tutolo, a participating scientist on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover team and lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Science."Models predict that carbonate minerals should be widespread. But, to date, rover-based investigations and satellite-based orbital surveys of the Martian surface had found little evidence of their presence," Tutolo added.Because rock similar to that sampled by the rover has been identified globally on Mars, the researchers suspect it too contains an abundance of carbonate minerals and may hold a substantial portion of the carbon dioxide that once warmed Mars.The Gale crater sedimentary rocks - sandstones and mudstones - are thought to have been deposited around 3.5 billion years ago, when this was the site of a lake and before the Martian climate underwent a dramatic change."The shift of Mars' surface from more habitable in the past, to apparently sterile today, is the largest-known environmental catastrophe," said planetary scientist and study co-author Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago and Astera Institute."We do not know the cause of this change, but Mars has a very thin carbon dioxide atmosphere today, and there is evidence that the atmosphere was thicker in the past. This puts a premium on understanding where the carbon went, so discovering a major unsuspected deposit of carbon-rich materials is an important new clue," Kite added.The rover's findings offer insight into the carbon cycle on ancient Mars.On Earth, volcanoes spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the gas is absorbed by surface waters - mainly the ocean - and combines with elements such as calcium to form limestone rock. Through the geological process called plate tectonics, this rock is reheated and the carbon is ultimately released again into the atmosphere through volcanism. Mars, however, lacks plate tectonics."The important feature of the ancient Martian carbon cycle that we outline in this study is that it was imbalanced. In other words, substantially more carbon dioxide seems to have been sequestered into the rocks than was subsequently released back into the atmosphere," Tutolo said."Models of Martian climate evolution can now incorporate our new analyses, and in turn, help to refine the role of this imbalanced carbon cycle in maintaining, and ultimately losing, habitability over Mars' planetary history," Tutolo added.(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

Chemicals
Climate
CO2

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