Project description DEENESFRITPL Investigating evidence of ancient water on Mars Exploration missions to Mars have revealed evidence of an ancient hydrological system. The past presence of liquid water is important since water is an essential ingredient for life. The evidence suggests past sediments possibly linked with an ocean system. However, the identification of ancient deposits of the same age, same composition with global distribution in agreement with a possible ocean level is needed. Such clues are small-scale exposures solved only by high-resolution orbital datasets or in situ exploration. The EU funded OCEANID project will use an innovative methodology of orbital data mining and complementary dataset, orbital, in situ and experimental data, to investigate the early Martian sedimentary record. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective The Martian missions have gradually revealed that Mars abounds with evidence of a full ancient hydrological system favourable to life emergence. If so, there is every reasons to believe that Mars has hosted a hemispheric ocean covering the northern lowlands. This hypothesis is as old as Mars exploration, but has been repeatedly challenged over the past two decades. The case of primitive Martian ocean remains one of the planet’s most controversial and unsolved issue. Recent discoveries are re-opening this question mainly highlighting that the main oceanic activity may be older than we thought with related deposits partly exhumed and two rovers (Mars2020/NASA arrived in 2021 and ExoMars/ESA-Roskosmos to be launched in 2022) have landing sites in the oldest terrains never explored on Mars, displaying sediments possibly linked with an ocean system. To wind up the debate, the identification of ancient deposits of the same age, same composition with a global distribution in agreement with a possible ocean level is required. But such clues are small scale exposures solved only by high-resolution orbital data set (>10 To of data) or by in situ exploration preventing a forward link to the global context. Oceanid proposes to face this challenge by investigating at different scale: global, mesoscale and microscale using complementary dataset (orbital, in situ and experimental data). Oceanid will also lie on innovative methodology of orbital data mining: geological object recognition by artificial intelligence, erosion/deposition evolution models, clustering from multi-type of data…Oceanid objectives are to describe the early Martian sedimentary record accumulated below possible global ocean levels, to establish a fine-scale chronology of primitive events, to contextualize Mars2020 and ExoMars missions within the global ancient hydrological system and to correlate the oceanic context, the transient water cycle, and the mineralogy observed both from orbit and in situ. Fields of science natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencenatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencedata miningnatural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencesplanetsnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesgeologymineralogy Programme(s) HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2021-COG - ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2021-COG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC) Coordinator UNIVERSITE LYON 1 CLAUDE BERNARD Net EU contribution € 1 932 500,00 Address Boulevard du 11 novembre 1918 num43 69622 Villeurbanne cedex France See on map Region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Rhône-Alpes Rhône Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 Participants (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all Third-party Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure. CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS France Net EU contribution € 37 500,00 Address Rue michel ange 3 75794 Paris See on map Region Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
