Re: Is Martian meteorite ALH84001 still being investegated?

Hi Matt,
Many people are still investigating ALH84001. Due the controversy of whether the carbonate globules are biotic, you can be assured that people will continue to study the martian meteorite for a long time.

The literature on the Alan Hills meteorite is large, but there are only a handful of papers regarding a viral origin of the fossils. In particular, some short papers by L. V. Ksanfomality discuss the possibility of a viral origin of the fossils. (The papers are from conference proceedings, so you might have a hard time finding them. The NASA Astrophysics Data System is a search engine that you can use to find relevant articles.) Other than these papers, there isn't much information as to whether the fossils might be viral. Ksanfomality suggests looking for traces of DNA in the meteorite. Traces of elements that comprise genetic material would constitute a chemofossil. Chemofossils are residual chemical traces left from structures, whereas morphofossils are physical structures. Typically, fragile structures that are not resistant to environmental stresses will not be preserved as morphofossils. Viruses have not left a morphofossil record, as far as we know. Perhaps imaging technology hasn't been good enough to find virus fossils. I do not know if one could detect a viral chemofossil.

So, while investigation of ALH84001 are ongoing, whether viruses played a role does not seem to be a key question at the moment. (This does not necessarily mean that viruses were not involved, though.)

Sarah Earley
CU Boulder