Preservation of Lipid Biomarkers Under Prolonged and Extreme Hyperaridity in Atacama Desert Soils

Mary Beth Wilhelm1,2, Alfonso F Davila2,3, Jennifer L Eigenbrode4, Mary Nichole Parenteau2,5, Linda L Jahnke6, Roger E Summons7, Xiaolei Liu8, James J Wray9, Brian Stamos10, Shane Stephen O'Reilly11 and Amy J Williams4,12, (1)Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus, Atlanta, GA, United States, (2)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, United States, (3)SETI Institute Mountain View, Mountain View, CA, United States, (4)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (5)SETI Institute Mountain View, Mountain View, United States, (6)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (7)MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA, United States, (8)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, (9)Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States, (10)University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, United States, (11)Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, (12)Towson University, Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Geosciences, Towson, United States