Largest Methane Spike Ever, Curiosity Rover to Examine it Further Options

[dudley]

It's been reported today that a release of methane on Mars, three times larger than ever detected before, was discovered on Wednesday. On Friday the Curiosity rover had its plans altered, in order to concentrate on this phenomenon, it's said. Preliminary results of this investigation are expected on Monday. Further information is available in the article, linked below:

Link

[Julius]

What about trace gas orbiter? Insight should also detect tectonic activity if the methane has a geological source. In the absence of any activity, it may be interpreted as boosting the idea of methane arising from a biological source.

[JRehling]

Nice thought, Julius, but I'd say "could" rather than "should." Gas release could be arbitrarily gentle. We're talking about an unknown phenomenon so it's impossible to nail down the details. This could even be a chemical release from a source with a geological origin. But, yes, certainly some kinds of gas release would have a seismic parallel, and having the ability to check that is a wonderful capability.

[HSchirmer]

Gas release could be arbitrarily gentle.
(snip)
This could even be a chemical release from a source with a geological origin.

Thinking along similar lines, estimates suggest the Gale crater could have punched as deep as 17kM deep, compared to ~11kM for the Marianas Trench.

On Earth, that is easily deep enough for some really unusual physical chemistry, e.g. methane clathrates and subsurface pools of liquid CO2

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Sep 19; 103(38): 13903–13904.
Lakes of liquid CO2 in the deep sea
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1599885/

So, there's a fair chance that this could be related to the breakdown of methane clathrates, aka "Burning Ice", which then collect and follow the many deep fractures likely created by the Gale impact.