California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

December 17-19, 2001

The California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are hosting a multi-disciplinary workshop to identify what observations of the composition of the Mars atmosphere would allow the detection of extant subsurface life, remnants of life, or signatures of past climate supportive of life. A key question is how to distinguish between actual biosignatures and atmospheric composition resulting from volcanic emissions and other non-biological natural processes that might be occurring on Mars.

Members of the scientific community are invited to participate in plenary session discussions and present poster talks. The proceedings of the workshop will be published.

Further information may be found at the workshop website (http://www.gps.caltech.edu/meetings/MACA). Registration will be through this website.

The NASA Astrobiology Institute will entertain requests for travel support. See the workshop website for additional details.