Extraction of organic signatures from carbonates and evaporites: from mineral deposits to Mars

More advanced analyses rely on extracting hydrocarbons from oil fluid inclusions, which allows the integration of geochemical data with petrography, especially where individual inclusions can be analysed. Data from distinct populations of inclusions can highlight changes in geochemistry with time from a single sample. The extraction of organic molecules from aqueous inclusion fluids will be much more difficult technically but, if achieved, could help to obtain biomolecular data from early Earth samples and from samples retrieved from other planets. This will require very high resolution techniques, including the application of biotechnology to geological samples.