Keyron Hickman-Lewis

Natural History Museum, London · Department of Earth Sciences

Modern biological dependency on trace elements is proposed to be a consequence of their enrichment in the habitats of early life together with Earth's evolving physicochemical conditions; the resulting metallic biological complement is termed the metallome. Herein, we detail a protocol for describing metallomes in deep time, with applications to th...

Limited taxonomic classification is possible for Archaean microbial mats and this is a fundamental limitation in constraining early ecosystems. Applying Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), a powerful tool for identifying vibrational motions attributable to specific functional groups, we characterized fossilized biopolymers in 3.5-3.3 Ga...

The Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe cratons host some of the earliest evidence for life. When compared to the contemporaneous East Pilbara craton, cherts and other metasedimentary horizons in southern Africa preserve traces of life with far greater morphological and geochemical fidelity. In spite of this, most fossiliferous horizons of southern Africa have r...

The NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is currently exploring Jezero crater, a Noachian-Hesperian locality that once hosted a delta-lake system with high habitability and biosignature preservation potential. Perseverance conducts detailed appraisals of rock targets using a synergistic payload capable of geological characterization from kilometer to...

Paleoarchean stromatwolites are among the oldest compelling evidence for life. We present advanced two- and three-dimensional (2-D and 3-D) reconstructions of the morphology, mineralogy, trace element geochemistry, and taphonomy of permineralized stromatolites from the lowermost horizons of the ca. 3.5 Ga Dresser Formation, Pilbara, Western Austral...

A high priority goal for past, present and future missions to Mars is the search for evidence of past or present life. Some of the most information-rich signals are those represented by organic biomarkers. Thermal extraction has historically been the most popular in situ analysis technique employed on Mars owing to its elegance and ability to liber...

The presence and distribution of preserved organic matter on the surface of Mars can provide key information about the Martian carbon cycle and the potential of the planet to host life throughout its history. Several types of organic molecules have been previously detected in Martian meteorites¹ and at Gale crater, Mars2–4. Evaluating the diversity...

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. After a 100‐sol period of commissioning and the Ingenuity Helicopter technology demonstration, Perseverance began its first science campaign to explore the enigmatic Jezero crater floor, whose igneous or sedimentary origins have been much debated in the scientific communi...

The first samples collected by the Mars 2020 mission represent units exposed on the Jezero Crater floor, from the potentially oldest Séítah formation outcrops to the potentially youngest rocks of the heavily cratered Máaz formation. Surface investigations reveal landscape‐to‐microscopic textural, mineralogical, and geochemical evidence for igneous...

We have studied the observed properties of the Nili Fossae olivine-phyllosilicate-carbonate lithology from orbital data and in situ by the Mars 2020 rover at the Séítah unit in Jezero crater, including: 1) composition 2) grain size 3) inferred viscosity (calculated based on geochemistry collected by SuperCam (Wiens et al., 2022)). Based on the low...

Plain Language Summary The goals of NASA's Mars 2020 mission include searching for evidence of ancient life on Mars, studying the geology of Jezero crater, understanding Mars' current and past climate, and preparing for human exploration of Mars. During the mission's first science campaign, SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Lu...

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars in February 2021. We used the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument to perform deep ultraviolet Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy of three rocks within the crater. We identify evidence for two distinct ancient aqueous environ...

Collocated crystal sizes and mineral identities are critical for interpreting textural relationships in rocks and testing geological hypotheses, but it has been previously impossible to unambiguously constrain these properties using in situ instruments on Mars rovers. Here, we demonstrate that diffracted and fluoresced x-rays detected by the PIXL i...

The search for life beyond the Earth is the overarching goal of the NASA Astrobiology Program, and it underpins the science of missions that explore the environments of Solar System planets and exoplanets. However, the detection of extraterrestrial life, in our Solar System and beyond, is sufficiently challenging that it is likely that multiple mea...

jats:p>The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, to investigate ancient lake and river deposits. We report observations of the crater floor, below the crater’s sedimentary delta, finding that the floor consists of igneous rocks altered by water. The lowest exposed unit, informally named Séítah, is a coarsely crystalline olivine-rich roc...

A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is seeking signs of ancient life in Jezero crater and is collecting a cache of Martian rock and soil samples for planned return to Earth by a future mission. A key exploration target for the mission is a prominent sedimentary fan deposit at the wes...

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, to investigate ancient lake and river deposits. We report observations of the crater floor, below the crater’s sedimentary delta, finding the floor consists of igneous rocks altered by water. The lowest exposed unit, informally named Séítah, is a coarsely crystalline olivine-rich rock, which acc...

The geological units on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars, are part of a wider regional stratigraphy of olivine-rich rocks, which extends well beyond the crater. We investigate the petrology of olivine and carbonate-bearing rocks of the Séítah formation in the floor of Jezero. Using multispectral images and x-ray fluorescence data, acquired by the P...

The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) is a robotic arm-mounted instrument onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover. SHERLOC combines imaging via two cameras with both Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy to investigate geological materials at the rover’s Jezero crater field site. SHERLOC requir...

We present a synthesis of PIXL elemental data and SHERLOC Raman spectra collected on two targets investigated by the Perseverance rover during the first year of its exploration of Jezero Crater, Mars. The Bellegarde target (in the Máaz formation) and Dourbes target (in the Séítah formation) exhibit distinctive mineralogies that are an ideal case st...

The Perseverance rover landed on the floor of Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. The landing site, named “Octavia E. Butler” is located ~2.2 km from the SE-facing erosional scarp of the western fan deposits, which are of strong interest for the mission [1-2]. Images obtained using the Mastcam-Z camera and the Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) of the SuperC...

Orbital and rover observations of relict geomorphic features and stratigraphic architectures indicate Mars once had a warmer, wetter climate. Constraining the character, relative timing and persistence of ancient aqueous activity on Mars is possible through detailed interrogation of the stratal geometry of aqueously deposited sedimentary bodies. Su...

Powdered rocks are commonly present at the surface of extraterrestrial bodies and are widely analysed by in situ space probes. Moreover, a number of rovers exploring the surface of Mars are equipped with drills enabling them to access unaltered material and collect samples. During drilling operations, a cone of powder made of the drilled materials...

In this work, we address the difficulty of reliably identifying traces of life on Mars. Several independent lines of evidence are required to build a compelling body of proof. In particular, we underline the importance of correctly interpreting the geological and mineralogical context of the sites to be explored for the presence of biosignatures. W...

The Astrobiology Laboratory at the Università di Bologna has diverse interests in multiple areas of research, including the study of planetary field analogues for space exploration, the geomicrobiological characterisation of biosignatures in modern and ancient extreme environments, and the analysis of Earth's oldest traces of life using high-resolu...

Perseverance images of a delta on Mars The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, in February 2021. Earlier orbital images showed that the crater contains an ancient river delta that was deposited by water flowing into a lake billions of years ago. Mangold et al . analyzed rover images taken shortly after landing that show distant cliff...

The practical limitations inherent to human and robotic planetary exploration necessitate the development of specific protocols and methods. This non-standard approach requires testing and validation phases in order to optimize instrumental setups and improve data interpretation; this can occur prior to, during, or even after a mission. Flight inst...

Life is the outcome of a complex network of chemical reactions and molecular interactions that emerged on Earth once primitive chemical automata could self-assemble in such a way that enabled them to self-reproduce and evolve. Yet exactly how, where and when life first appeared on our planet remains unknown. In this chapter, we review the various l...

Precambrian cellular remains frequently have simple morphologies, micrometric dimensions and are poorly preserved, imposing severe analytical and interpretational challenges, especially for irrefutable attestations of biogenicity. The 1.88 Ga Gunflint biota is a Precambrian microfossil assemblage with different types and qualities of preservation a...

Palaeoarchaean cherts preserve the most ancient direct traces of life, but this palaeobiological testament is rarely assimilated into ecosystem or biome models. Trace and rare earth element plus yttrium (REE+Y) compositions reliably decode the palaeodepositional settings of these cherts, and thus constrain the environments within which early microb...

The icy moons of the outer Solar System harbor potentially habitable environments for life, however, compared to the terrestrial biosphere, these environments are characterized by extremes in temperature, pressure, pH, and other physico-chemical conditions. Therefore, the search for life on these icy worlds is anchored on the study of terrestrial e...

Five bacterial (facultatively) anaerobic strains, namely Buttiauxella sp. MASE-IM-9, Clostridium sp. MASE-IM-4, Halanaerobium sp. MASE-BB-1, Trichococcus sp. MASE-IM-5, and Yersinia intermedia MASE-LG-1 isolated from different extreme natural environments were subjected to Mars relevant environmental stress factors in the laboratory under controlle...

We propose an innovative method based on photography and image processing of interdisciplinary relevance, permitting the uncomplicated and inexpensive evaluation of material properties. This method—CaliPhoto—consists of using a dedicated colour plate with a specific design, placed in the field of view of a photograph of the material to be character...

The ExoMars 2020 mission will characterise a Martian locality with potential former habitability – Oxia Planum – and attempt to identify preserved morphological and chemical biosignatures. The payload will include a drill retrieving cores from the subsurface (up to 2m depth), which will be imaged at high resolution by two instruments: the Panoramic...

Morphologically diverse organo-sedimentary structures (including microbial mats and stromatolites) provide a palaeobiological record through more than three billion years of Earth history. Since understanding much of the Archaean fossil record is contingent upon proving the biogenicity of such structures, mechanistic interpretations of well-preserv...

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) analysis of carbonaceous, volcanic, tidal sediments from the 3.33 Ga-old Josefsdal Chert (Kromberg Formation, Barberton Greenstone Belt), documents the presence of two types of insoluble organic matter (IOM): (1) IOM similar to that previously found in Archean cherts from numerous other sedimentary rocks in the...

The Dallol volcano and its associated hydrothermal field are located in a remote area of the northern Danakil Depression in Ethiopia, a region only recently appraised after decades of inaccessibility due to severe political instability and the absence of infrastructure. The region is notable for hosting environments at the very edge of natural phys...

Life on the early Earth inhabited a planet whose environment was vastly different from the Earth of today. An anaerobic and hot early Earth was the birthplace of the first living cells but wide-spread small-scale physico-chemical diversity provided opportunities for a variety of specialists: alkalophiles, acidophiles, halophiles etc. The earliest r...

There is much convincing evidence for early life in the Barberton greenstone belt (3.47-3.22 Ga), portraying a diverse Paleoarchean biosphere that occupied both marine and terrestrial habitats. This stands testament to the already widespread distribution and diversity of life on the early Earth. We here present an up-to-date review of fifty years o...

Raman spectroscopy is a molecule-specific technique allowing the investigation of the chemical structure of organic and inorganic geological materials. Being a nobiostructures from the Barberton greenstone belt of South An-invasive analytical procedure, Raman spectroscopy is ideally suited to palaeontology. Raman spectroscopy is herein applied to t...

The particle size, shape, surface texture and composition of aeolian and fluvial sedimentary samples were analyzed and compared using optical microscope-based automatized image analysis, in order to suggest indicators that could discriminate these two modes of transport on Mars. The principal goal is to assess if such indicators – established on Ea...

Critical to the origin of life are the ingredients of life, of course, but also the physical and chemical conditions in which prebiotic chemical reactions can take place. These factors place constraints on the types of Hadean environment in which life could have emerged. Many locations, ranging from hydrothermal vents and pumice rafts, through volc...

On a volcanic and anaerobic planet characterized by abundant hydrothermal activity, physicochemical gradients and disequilibria at the local scale would have been fundamental for the emergence of life on Earth. Unfortunately, the early rock record pertaining to this existential process no longer exists, and, while chemists attempt to recreate life...

On a volcanic and anaerobic planet characterized by abundant hydrothermal activity, physicochemical gradients and disequilibria at the local scale would have been fundamental for the emergence of life on Earth. Unfortunately, the early rock record pertaining to this existential process no longer exists, and, while chemists attempt to recreate life...

In this study, we attempt to illustrate the competition that constitutes the main challenge of astrobiology, namely the competition between the probability of extraterrestrial life and its detectability. To illustrate this fact, we propose a simple statistical approach based on our knowledge of the Universe and the Milky Way, the Solar System, and...