Gypsum-hosted endolithic communities of the Lake St. Martin impact structure, Manitoba, Canada: spectroscopic detectability and implications for Mars

There is increasing evidence that Mars may have once been a habitable environment. Gypsum is targeted in the search for Martian biosignatures because it can host extensive cryptoendolithic communities in extreme terrestrial environments and is widespread on Mars. In this study the viability of using different spectroscopy-based techniques to identify the presence of gypsum endolithic communities was investigated by analysing various...