"BradGuth" wrote in message ...
On Feb 23, 3:52 am, "Jonathan" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in ...
On Feb 20, 5:52 pm, kT wrote:
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_006742_2050
Seriously, this is the place. MSL needs to plop right down into the
middle of this, otherwise it's just more of the same old new Mars.
But where's all the Mars salt?
Isn't salt rather important for life as we know it?
Earth w/o salt and we'd never have existed, or much less evolved into
what we know as intelligent life.
Ya mean like this salt lake on earth? Notice the most common
feature isn't diatoms, but highly uniform size ...spheres.
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXII (2001)
BIOGENIC STRUCTURES FROM A HYPERSALINE LAKE
IN THE BAHAMAS.
"Results and Discussion: Our FE-SEM analysis
indicates a range of microbial life forms on the fractured
stromatolite surfaces. Spheroidal features are the
most common, with four distinct populations, characterized
by their highly uniform intrapopulation sizes:"http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2001/pdf/1068.pdf
Meridiani is covered with sulfates (salts). Notice it's horizon
is flat as a pancake, which only an ocean can form.http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/027...448P2573L5M1_L...
Earth w/o diatoms is just as pathetic. So, where are those Mars
silica shell diatoms?
Like these?
http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/180...7BTP2568L5M1_L...
..............
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...5850153EFF3505...
Various wide angle images of the spheres.
http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/136...243P2598L5M1_L...
. - Brad Guth
As far as we know, those Mars spheres have not been identified as
diatom like,
Never said they were. Only they are everywhere and need
an explanation.
and salt has nothing whatsoever to do with such diatoms
other than they could have existed/coexisted in fresh or salty wet
environments.
Right, the salt lake on earth I cited, and Meridiani are
very much alike. Meridiani is a dried up salt lake/ocean.
Or most likely a shallow subsurface body of salt water.
I simply pointed out that on earth, in a salt lake and on
mars in a dried up salt lake, they two have one thing
in common. The most common feature of ...both...salt
lakes are large populations of highly uniform spheres.
I find that interesting.
For one thing, them spheres is simply way too big for
representing silica diatoms,
They are silica/iron concretions.
Thus far, the best available science of Mars hasn't offered 0.1% the
salt of Earth, making Mars a most likely once upon a time fresh water
I'm not sure why you keep saying Mars doesn't have the salt
for life. In fact the concern is that Mars is too salty for
most microbes.
http://www.smm.org/buzz/blog/mars_too_salty_for_life
And the high salt content, as much as 40% in some outcrops, was
the primary evidence for past water. This discovery, the high salt
content, was mostly responsible for the Science Magazine
Science Breakthrough of the Year just after the rovers landed.
http://cmbi.bjmu.cn/news/report/2004...files/Mars.pdf
Did Mars salt merge with some other cold/inert element and become
entirely something other, like perhaps those spheres?
We'll have to wait for better equipped landers, coming soon enough.
But Meridiani looks like an evaporated salty ocean floor. The spheres
would form in the softer sulfate deposits collecting on the sea floor
and weather out after the salts erode away. The question remains
on the spheres. No one to my knowledge has shown any earth
examples of highly uniform size and highly spherical concretions
forming ...without...either being nucleated by organic material.
Or growth mediated by microbrial activity. Abiotic concretions
are noted for their complete lack of consistancy in sizes and
shapes on earth as they take the form of whatever crack and
crevice they grow in.
No one has explained how the spheres on mars formed, because
as far as I can see, they can't form without the ...involvment...of
life or at least organic material.
And remember, they went to Meridiani because of the hematite
evidence which is a good indicator of past water. Well....almost
ALL of the hematite is in the spheres, all of it. And they don't
know how that came to be. Although they have accomplished
their primary objective of finding signs of water, they have
left open the debate on life, since the reason for the hematite
being present and only in the spheres is still unanswered
I believe.
http://cmbi.bjmu.cn/news/report/2004...files/Mars.pdf
.. - Brad Guth