The spectra of minerals formed by the mixing of liquid water and rock could be a good indicator of the presence of liquid water in the protoplanetary disk. Liquid water is one of the major requirements for life, so groups are falling over themselves to find it.
Phyllosilicates, formed by the interaction of rock and liquid water, include minerals such as the lovely serpentines. They all have a distinctive mid infrared spectrum, with a peak at 10 µm.
There are three problems here. In the first instance, this only tells us about the presence of liquid water, which in turn depends on radioactive hotplates like Aluminium-26. It doesn't tell us where the water ends up.
Second, it only predicts liquid water. If temperatures are too low, no phyllosillicates.
Third, if temperatures are too high in the accreting planet-seeds, phyllosillicates get friend, and chemically change, becoming unrecognizable. So how useful a marker this is, I'm not sure.
What this might be good for is testing for radioisotopes, which is also important. The reason that this is important is that it's radiation-heat that keeps the centre of our planet liquid. In other words, no radioisotopes = no liquid core = no magnetic shield = everything gets fried by solar radiation.
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