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In Utopia Planitia, the Zhurong rover helped identify manganese deposits that reinforce the hypothesis of an ocean on Mars for up to 1.5 million years. The study expands the search for ancient environments favorable to life, without proving that organisms existed on the red planet in its remote past.
Mars may preserve a mineral mark left by an ancient ocean that disappeared billions of years ago. In a study published on May 13, 2026, in the journal Nature Communications, researchers affiliated with Chinese institutions identified deposits of manganese oxides and hydroxides in Utopia Planitia, a large basin located in the northern plains of the planet.
According to the portal Olhar Digital, the discovery was obtained from data from the Chinese rover Zhurong and orbital observations made by instruments operated in missions from Europe and the United States. According to the team, the distribution of the minerals forms a kind of ring around the basin and suggests that the region harbored stable water for an estimated interval between 0.8 and 1.5 million years.
Manganese ring may record ancient ocean margin on Mars
The main result of the research lies in the arrangement of the manganese deposits. Instead of appearing randomly distributed across the terrain, the minerals concentrate in bands related to the basin’s altitude, a behavior that scientists interpret as a possible mark left by the retreat of an ocean on Mars.
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The team compares this signature to a mineral mark similar to that which may remain on the edges of lakes or reservoirs after the water level decreases. On Mars, this manganese band would function as a preserved record of the expansion, retreat, and disappearance of an ancient ocean.
Utopia Planitia was already considered an important region to investigate Mars’ aqueous past. The area contains geological formations that have been associated with wet environments and possible ancient shorelines, but the new study adds a duration estimate based on mineralogical indicators.
Rover Zhurong and orbiters helped map the deposits
The Zhurong rover landed in Utopia Planitia in 2021 as part of the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission. During its activity on the surface of Mars, the vehicle traveled about 1.9 kilometers and collected data on mineral composition, soil characteristics, and structures of the region.
To extend the analysis beyond the path traveled by the Zhurong rover, researchers combined this information with observations made by the OMEGA instruments from the European Mars Express mission and CRISM from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. The strategy allowed for the investigation of a much larger area of the basin.
With data from the Zhurong rover, the study also used a deep learning system trained with thousands of infrared spectra of materials simulating Martian soils. The tool was applied to recognize signs of manganese-containing minerals in the available readings. The conclusion does not rely solely on a single image but on the comparison between data collected on the surface and records obtained from orbit.
Stable water may have persisted for up to 1.5 million years
From the pattern of the deposits, the authors reconstructed phases of formation, expansion, regression, and disappearance of the ocean associated with the region. The model indicates that relatively stable aqueous conditions may have persisted in Utopia Planitia for approximately 0.8 to 1.5 million years.
This interval is significant because it suggests something different from a transient flood or very brief episodes of surface water. The research points to a long-lasting aquatic system on Mars, capable of chemically modifying the landscape and leaving detectable records billions of years later.
There is, however, an important clarification: the article does not state that the ocean was between 150 and 400 meters in total depth. What the scientists suggest is that this ocean from the Hesperian period may have been between 150 and 400 meters shallower than a previously proposed Martian shoreline, known as Deuteronilus.
Minerals indicate a watery past, but do not prove life
The existence of liquid water for a prolonged period is of direct interest to astrobiology because stable environments increase the possibilities for complex chemical reactions. On Earth, long-lasting bodies of water played a decisive role in the processes that preceded and supported primitive forms of life.
In the case of Mars, the authors make it clear that the discovery does not equate to finding organisms, fossils, or direct signs of biological activity. The manganese deposits may have been formed by non-biological processes, associated with water, oxidation, and the chemistry available in that ancient environment.
Even so, the persistence of water makes the region more relevant for future investigations. Utopia Planitia now represents not only a possible ancient ocean margin but a place where conditions favorable to prebiotic chemistry may have lasted long enough to leave preserved clues.
Volcanic activity may have covered part of this record
The study also proposes an explanation for the disappearance or concealment of part of the mineral deposits. According to the researchers, later volcanic activities associated with Elysium Mons may have covered lower areas of the basin with lava flows.
This covering would help explain why manganese signals are more evident in certain regions and more difficult to identify in others. Instead of disappearing completely, part of the ancient ocean record may have been buried under layers formed in later periods of Martian geological history.
The interpretation shows how the surface of Mars has been transformed over billions of years. Water, sediments, oxidation processes, climate cooling, and volcanism may have acted in sequence, creating and hiding evidence of a past very different from the dry planet observed today.
Manganese may guide future missions to the red planet
In addition to reconstructing the past, the identified manganese deposits offer practical indications for future missions. High concentrations of manganese near the edge of the basin can help scientists select priority locations for new soil and rock analyses.
These points are relevant because minerals formed in aqueous environments can preserve chemical information about the conditions existing at the time of their deposition. If future missions seek indirect signs of potentially habitable ancient environments, areas rich in manganese could become important targets.
The authors also discuss that manganese-containing materials have the potential to participate in oxygen production processes from water in future applications. The possibility still depends on technological development and does not represent a solution available for astronauts, but it broadens the scientific interest in these deposits.
Discovery reinforces debate about ancient oceans on Mars
The hypothesis that an ocean existed on Mars in the northern plains has been studied for decades. Orbital images, reliefs interpreted as coastlines, and underground data have been fueling this debate, but doubts remained about the duration, extent, and evolution of these environments.
The new research adds a different type of evidence: a mineral marker capable of recording changes in the presence of water over time. Manganese oxides and hydroxides would not only indicate interaction with water but also allow estimating how long this system remained active.
If the interpretation is confirmed by subsequent work, Utopia Planitia could become one of the most important regions for understanding when Mars ceased to be a world with persistent aqueous environments and began to present the extreme conditions known today.
A dry planet can still hold marks of an ancient sea
The current image of Mars is that of a cold, arid planet covered in dust. The presence of manganese deposits associated with a vanished ocean on Mars shows, however, that its surface can preserve records of a phase when water remained available for a geologically significant interval.
The discovery does not confirm ancient life and will still need to be tested by new observations and future missions. Even so, it indicates that the search for answers may be recorded in discrete minerals, scattered in a distant basin and detected after billions of years of planetary transformations.
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