WATER-POOR, RESEARCH-RICH: RECONNAISSANCE GEOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY IN THE GREAT BASIN NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA (NEVADA AND UTAH, USA)

A popular review of Utah’s remote Sevier Lake reads: “There is no lake” [rating: 1 out of 5 stars]. But while the Great Basin Desert surrounding “the Loneliest Road in America” (U.S. Route 50) may appear desolate and deserted at cursory first glance, the Great Basin is anything but empty. In identifying candidate terrestrial sites as geologic and/or climatic analogs for the Moon or Mars (as well as numerous other planetary bodies across the Solar System), extreme regions generally devoid of abundant life and water—geological landscapes little-modified by lithosphere-biosphere or extensive lithosphere-hydrosphere interactions—often become attractive targets. Building on previous experience conducting Mars- and Moon-analog geology and geochemistry research on field sites in Antarctica’s polar deserts, Spain’s arid and volcanic Canary Islands, and California’s Mojave Desert and high desert of Lava Beds National Monument, we here describe early-stage efforts in identifying, studying in-situ, and analyzing in-situ (and in the lab) candidate planetary analog sites in the Great Basin National Heritage Area of Nevada and Utah. We will discuss considerations and methodologies employed during fieldwork at Heritage Area sites including Utah’s Sevier Lake and the Black Rock Desert volcanic field, an area that—despite being identified as 1 of just 11 volcanic fields globally with the highest potential for biosignature preservation in Mars-analog environments (Ryan et al., 2024)—remains very much understudied by geologists and planetary scientists.

Ryan, C. H., Schmidt, M. E., Osinski, G. R., & Massey, E. A. (2024). A global database of Mars-relevant hydrovolcanic environments on Earth with potential biosignature preservation. Geosphere, 20, 547–576.