{"id":110430,"date":"2026-06-16T11:15:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T15:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=110430"},"modified":"2026-06-16T13:16:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:16:44","slug":"brock-geologist-finds-evidence-of-hidden-gem-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2026\/06\/brock-geologist-finds-evidence-of-hidden-gem-on-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock geologist finds evidence of hidden gem on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

An international research team led by a Brock University professor in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has given stargazers another reason to call Mars the \u201cRed Planet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Earth, garnet \u2014 a dark-red gem popular with Ancient Egyptians, Romans and the Victorian elite alike \u2014 is January\u2019s birthstone.<\/p>\n

On Mars, garnet\u2019s presence is a potential new opening to a deeper understanding of the planet\u2019s 4.5-billion-year history, says Tanya Kizovski.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis discovery is going to expand our knowledge of the geologic processes that are possible on this planet,\u201d says the Brock Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences. \u201cThis new garnet-bearing rock type could give us clues to how Mars has changed throughout its history and new insights into the ancient environments that could have formed the garnet and related minerals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kizovski and colleagues at the ROM came to know of the garnet\u2019s presence while analyzing a fragment of a Martian meteorite known as NWA 8171 within the ROM\u2019s collections.<\/p>\n

Kizovski sought to identify the fragment\u2019s minerals and chemical composition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis little section of the meteorite looked really interesting, and the chemistry was a bit odd,\u201d she says. \u201cAt first, we assumed it was a mineral called pyroxene, which is very common, but then we decided to take a second look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/a>

Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences Tanya Kizovski holds up a rock called an Eclogite, a garnet-bearing rock from Earth that contains red garnets and green pyroxene.<\/p><\/div>\n

Using the ROM\u2019s specialized laser equipment, the team \u2014 which in addition to Brock includes researchers from the ROM, University of Toronto, University of Portsmouth in the U.K., Universita di Trieste in Italy and Open University in the U.K. \u2014 were surprised to discover garnet, a mineral that had not been identified on Mars until now.<\/p>\n

The team analyzed the fragment\u2019s chemistry and mineralogy and speculated on the garnet\u2019s origin.<\/p>\n

Garnet is a \u201cclassic example\u201d of a mineral often found in metamorphic rocks on Earth, says Kizovski. The process of metamorphism transforms igneous or sedimentary rocks into a new form through exposure to extreme heat, high pressure or hot fluids.<\/p>\n

On Mars, the heat and pressure needed to produce garnet through metamorphism could have come from the impact of a meteorite hitting the surface of Mars, magma rising up into the Martian crust or both, she says.<\/p>\n

Kizovski is quick to caution that the research doesn\u2019t definitively indicate whether the garnet-bearing rock formed on Mars or was delivered to the Red Planet and incorporated into its surface in a meteorite landing, leaving the possibility for an \u201cextra-Martian\u201d origin.<\/p>\n

Scientists need to now study the garnet\u2019s isotopic signatures to verify if it was originally produced on Mars or on another planetary body.<\/p>\n

Measuring oxygen isotopes from the garnet-bearing rock type itself would help to confirm if it is Martian in origin or from an exotic meteorite impactor, Kizovski says. Isotopes are a collection of atoms with equal numbers of protons and electrons, but different numbers of neutrons.<\/p>\n

However, that process would entail destroying some of the sample, \u201cwhich was avoided thus far due to its rarity, as it may be the only garnet-bearing Martian rock we have for study,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

ROM curator Kim Tait and Research Assistant Jessica Tomacic are continuing to study the sample. \u201cWith their work and more comparisons to rover and orbital data, I\u2019m hopeful that we will be able to learn more about the origin and history of garnet on Mars,\u201d Kizovski says.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s study \u201cExpanding Mars\u2019 lithologic diversity: discovery of a garnet-bearing clast in NWA 8171<\/a>,\u201d was published Tuesday, June 16 in Geochemical Perspectives Letters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This research project is funded in part by the Government of Canada\u2019s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Killam Trusts Dorothy Killam fellowship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An international research team led by a Brock University professor in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has given stargazers another reason to call Mars the \u201cRed Planet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":110432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7484,3319,4052,41,4767,1,5],"tags":[885,348,15176,1963,5264,11934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110430"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110439,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110430\/revisions\/110439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}