Red Stone - Atacama

To search for unequivocal signs of life on a Mars analog site, Red Stone, a a 163-100 My alluvial fan-fan delta that formed under arid conditions in the Atacama Desert. Our analyses by testbed instruments that are on or will be sent to Mars unveil that although the mineralogy of Red Stone matches that detected by ground-based instruments on the red planet, similarly low levels of organics will be hard, if not impossible to detect in Martian rocks depending on the instrument and technique used.