Boston College dates Mars shergottite NWA 13441 at 1.273 billion years, filling sample gap

Boston College scientists dated Martian meteorite Northwest Africa 13441 to about 1.273 billion years and linked it to a previously unsampled source on Mars, phys.org reported on a study in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Most dated shergottites are younger than 600 million years or about 2.4 billion years old, leaving a multi-hundred-million-year gap with no shergottite samples. Coauthor Ethan Baxter said no other Martian meteorite of this type is 1.27 billion years old. The rock was found in Algeria in 2019; Baxter's Center for Isotope Geochemistry analyzed a sample with colleagues at Appalachian State, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and The Open University. Neodymium isotopes match the initial solar system value represented by chondrites, unlike other shergottites, suggesting a deep Martian reservoir that stayed largely unaltered since early planetary formation. Doctoral candidate Dylan M. Seal said the age fills a roughly 2-billion-year gap for magmatic and volcanic activity on Mars. The paper DOI is 10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035.