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Episodic warm climates on early Mars primed by crustal hydration

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 133–139 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Geological records indicate that the surface of ancient Mars harboured substantial volumes of liquid water, a resource gradually diminished by processes such as the chemical alteration of crustal materials by hydration and atmospheric escape. However, how a relatively warm climate existed on early Mars to support liquid water under a fainter young Sun is debated. Greenhouse gases such as H2 in a CO2-rich atmosphere could have contributed to warming through collision-induced absorption, but whether sufficient H2 was available to sustain warming remains unclear. Here we use a combined climate and photochemical model to simulate how atmospheric chemistry on early Mars responded to water–rock reactions and climate variations, as constrained by existing observations. We find that H2 outgassing from crustal hydration and oxidation, supplemented by transient volcanic activity, could have generated sufficient H2 fluxes to transiently foster warm, humid climates. We estimate that Mars experienced episodic warm periods of an integrated duration of ~40 million years, with each event lasting ≥105 years, consistent with the formation timescale of valley networks. Declining atmospheric CO2 via surface oxidant sinks or variations in the planet’s axial tilt could have led to abrupt shifts in the planet’s redox state and transition to a CO-dominated atmosphere and cold climate.

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Fig. 1: Mars H, C, O chemistry including ground sinks and escape processes.
Fig. 2: Surface temperatures and steady-state chemistry in cases with crustal hydration.
Fig. 3: Lifetime of near-surface hydrogen.
Fig. 4: Mixing ratio outputs from cold early Mars cases.

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Data availability

KINETICS and REDFOX outputs and python scripts to generate Figs. 2–4 and Supplementary Fig. 1 are provided at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QAEOFR.

Code availability

KINETICS was developed by a combination of authors (D.A. and Y.L.Y.) and many who are not co-authors on this work15,49. Per the KINETICS User Agreement, we do not have permission to distribute the source code, but an executable to reproduce the runs can be provided on reasonable request. REDFOX is IP of DLR Berlin, available to developer and co-author M.S. as a courtesy, but not available for public distribution. Outputs from the model are provided to the reader in ‘Data availability’.

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Acknowledgements

The data repository with KINETICS output data files is available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/8JCR8U. We thank D. Lo, S. Stone, M. Wong and S. Bartlett for valuable discussions and for helpful suggestions to the manuscript. This project was supported in part by a Discovery Fund from Caltech Geological and Planetary Sciences and a Research and Technology Development Fund from JPL. D.A.’s research is funded by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Grant HST-HF2-51523.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5‐26555. This work was supported in part by NASA Habitable Worlds grant NNN13D466T, later changed to 80NM0018F0612. R.H.’s research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. T.B.T. acknowledges funding from the NSF GRFP (DGE-1762114) and the Virtual Planetary Laboratory, a member of NASA NExSS, funded via the NASA Astro-biology Program (grant 80NSSC18K0829). R.W. acknowledges funding from Leverhulme Center for Life in the Universe. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Danica Adams, Robin Wordsworth & Kayla Smith

  2. Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Danica Adams, Renyu Hu, Bethany L. Ehlmann & Yuk L. Yung

  3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Markus Scheucher, Renyu Hu & Yuk L. Yung

  4. Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Astrobiology Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Trent B. Thomas

  5. School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Robin Wordsworth

  6. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Eva Scheller

  7. Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Rob Lillis

  8. Central State University, Wilberforce, OH, USA

    Kayla Smith

  9. Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Kayla Smith

  10. Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany

    Heike Rauer

  11. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany

    Heike Rauer

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Contributions

D.A. conceived the research question and KINETICS approach, adapted and ran KINETICS, analysed model output and drafted the manuscript. M.S. adapted and ran REDFOX and analysed model output. R.H. concepted interfacing with REDFOX, and analysed model output. B.L.E. provided concepts for geologic scenarios and fluxes. T.B.T. estimated H2 outgassing rates by volcanism. E.S. contributed to geologic constraints for H2 release. R.W. provided input and background on climate and geology. R.L. provided input on CO2 photolysis and electron impact ionization. K.S. conducted HOx sensitivity tests. H.R. contributed to REDFOX. Y.L.Y. developed original KINETICS code and analysed model output. All authors participated in writing and editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Danica Adams.

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Nature Geoscience thanks James Kasting and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary handling editor: Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Adams, D., Scheucher, M., Hu, R. et al. Episodic warm climates on early Mars primed by crustal hydration. Nat. Geosci. 18, 133–139 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01626-8

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