[Born to Conserve]

Aluminum carbide, which can be produced by heating minerals containing aluminum and carbonates, will produce methane when exposed to moisture.

Same idea as calcium carbide used in carbide cannons, which produces acetylene when exposed to moisture.

There are countless examples of naturally occurring minerals that under go "life like" reactions.

There are plenty of possible exploitations for these gases, but only the ones involving life on Mars will get those "scientists" the publicity and government grants they seek.

[Gorzaloon]

Aluminum carbide, which can be produced by heating minerals containing aluminum and carbonates, will produce methane when exposed to moisture.

Reliance of a single absorption line (The C-H Stretch) to identify methane, or anything else is simply bad spectrophotometry. It can work in something mundane as Auto Exhaust analysis because the reactants and kinetics are known. Nothing is really known aboutthe sample they are trying to analyze-its identity, source, its precursors, etc. It PROBABLY is methane. But it might not be.