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\"Understanding when and how the planet's climate started evolving is a piece of another puzzle: When and how long was Mars capable of supporting microbial life at the surface?\" Rapin added.

\"PHOTO:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
PHOTO: The network of cracks in this Martian rock slab called "Old Soaker" may have formed from the drying of a mud layer more than 3 billion years ago.
>

Rapin and others were especially interested in the mysterious salts found in a section of the crater known as \"Sutton Island,\" which suggest the water concentrated into a brine. This is significant because normally dried-up lakes leave behind pure salt crystals. These salts, however, are a mineral salt, and are mixed with other sediments, \"suggesting they crystallized in a wet environment -- possibly just beneath evaporating shallow ponds filled with briny water,\" according to the statement.

Rapin has suggested that Sutton Island may have resembled the saline lakes in South America's Altiplano back home on Earth.

\"During drier periods, the Altiplano lakes become shallower, and some can dry out completely,\" Rapin said. \"The fact that they're vegetation-free even makes them look a little like Mars.\"

 

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