Early Mars may have had a methanol ocean

The detection of gray crystalline hematite deposits on Mars by Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) has been used to argue for the presence of liquid water on Mars in the distant past. By methanol–thermal treatment of anhydrous FeCl3 at low temperatures (70–160 °C), crystalline gray hematite with layered structure was synthesized, based on this result an alternative explanation for the origin of martian hematite deposits is suggested. Methane could be abundant in the early martian atmosphere; process such as photochemical oxidation of methane could result in the formation of ocean or pool of organic compounds such as methanol, which provides an environment for the formation of large-scale hematite deposits on Mars.