Little Mars in the Arctic

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff joins an expedition to Svalbard, an archipelago midway between Norway and the North Pole. Recently, scientists found geological formations on Spitsbergen (its largest island) that resembles Martian minerals (so called blueberries). Kleine-Brockhoff reports in Die Zeit (11.5.2006) about the work of the international research team, the comparisons drawn between geology on Earth and Mars, the possibility of ancient life forms on our neighbour planet and options to reveal them. Preliminary studies to test for the latter have been done on Svalbard.