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The mars 2020 mission is really
important to me and my research because

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I study paleo lake basins here on earth and I

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study life that can live in the
sediments of paleo lake basins

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and look at what that could mean
for life on mars,

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and for the 2020 mission, Perseverance is
going

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to a paleo lake basin; it's going to
Jezero crater

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and it has this beautiful delta deposit

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that in the bottom of it has
some specific deposits called bottom set

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deposits and those are extremely
exciting and relevant to my work.

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The most amazing result that I, that we
could get for

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my research and my interest would be a

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detection of a possible biosignature in
the delta

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bottom set deposits of Jezero crater
and that's because those bottom set

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deposits are an amazing environment.
Here on Earth we know that bottom set

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deposits
in paleo lakes on Earth are excellent

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areas for high organics and biosignature preservation.

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So, if we could detect something in the
deposits, the bottom step deposits, on

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Mars that would be an amazing result
especially because it could have come

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from multiple different habitable zones:
it could have come from the delta, what we

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call the the watershed
the area of the tributaries all the

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rivers and streams that flowed into Jezero crater,

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to create the lake that was there
at one point.

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It could have come from the Jezero
paleo lake itself when the lake body was

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present and
there could have been life living in

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the lake that fell to the bottom and preserved.

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Or, it could have been in, most
importantly from my research perspective,

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it could have been
from a transitional habitable zone that

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happened in the near subsurface after
the lake water started to

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evaporate away while mars was drying out.
Life could have moved into

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the near subsurface and survived in
groundwater moving through the lake deposits,

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and we would be able to see that in

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those bottom set deposits
with the biosignature detection and that

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would be fascinating for
many reasons one of which also is that

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it would help us
guide our research and our

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exploration of the mars subsurface
because we do believe that Mars'

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subsurface was a habitable
zone for ancient life and could still be

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a habitable zone today,
albeit much deeper, it could be a