"randyj" wrote in message ...
"Kevin H" wrote in message
om...
This is my theory on how Mars was formed... I'm not an expert in geology
and this is all theory, but it seems to make good sense to me. I think
this will be disappointing for people who believe in the "big oceans"
theory.
snippage
. Mars had a
thicker atmosphere and oxygen in its ancient past, but oxidizing actions
with the massive amounts of iron spewed out in eruptions brought it out
of the atmosphere and form much of the rust-colored appearance we see
today. Perhaps the combination of this ash with the surface material
formed the soil with the weird properties we see in the Spirit photos.

Where did this oxygen come from? Plants?
rj


Whether oxygen came from photosynthesis or photolysis, the ultimate
substrate was water. There is no free oxygen in space at
temperatures below 3300 K, nor is there any free oxygen in the
planetary interior as illustrated by deep sea volcanos:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/chemi...ges/vents2.gif
Worthy of note is the absence of CO2 in the plumes of deep sea
volcanos, which lessens the likelyhood of photosynthesis.
I find no compelling reason to suspect that Mars deviated from the
composition of the solar nebula with a water to rock ratio of 2:1
http://www.genesismission.org/educat...lanetDiver.pdf
page 13. John Curtis