Brines Across the Solar System: Ancient and Future Brines

Meeting Location and Dates

We are happy to announce the final conference of the LPI’s Brines Across the Solar System series. The Ancient and Future Brines conference is scheduled for May 15–18, 2023, in Reno, Nevada. The conference format will be hybrid with in-person and virtual attendance opportunities and an optional field trip on May 19.

This is the final conference of the Brines Across the Solar System series.

Series Purpose and Scope

logA Salty aqueous solutions (i.e., brines) are prominent across diverse planetary bodies. They are observed in the gas plumes presently erupting from Enceladus, reconstructed from precipitates on the surface of Ceres and Mars, and inferred from meteoritic samples. Understanding the mechanisms that led to the formation and preservation of these brine systems provides vital clues to their role in geological, geophysical, environmental, and biological processes. In this conference series, we will address questions relating to the thermodynamics and physiochemistry of brines, as well as their occurrence today and throughout time in our solar system and beyond.

Conference Objectives

The Brines Across the Solar System: Ancient and Future Brines conference focuses on integrating diverse fields of study, such as geology, mineralogy, (astro)biology, chemistry, planetary science, physics, technology, and engineering. The emphasis for this conference will be the intersections of these fields as they apply to understanding:

– The formation, location, and potential habitability of ancient brines on early planetary bodies
– The role of ancient brines in the origins of life and habitable environments
– The technology involved in the detection and characterization of brines on planetary bodies (both in situ and in returned samples)
– The technology involved in mitigating brines in the detection and characterization of biosignatures
– The role and impact of brine systems for In Situ Resource Utilization