Mineral in Mars 'Berries' Adds to Water Story

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster (818) 354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Dwayne Brown (202) 358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

News Release: 2004-088 March 18, 2004

Mineral in Mars 'Berries' Adds to Water Story

A major ingredient in small mineral spheres analyzed by
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity furthers
understanding of past water at Opportunity's landing
site and points to a way of determining whether the vast
plains surrounding the site also have a wet history.

The spherules, fancifully called blueberries although
they are only the size of BBs and more gray than blue,
lie embedded in outcrop rocks and scattered over some
areas of soil inside the small crater where Opportunity
has been working since it landed nearly two months ago.

Individual spherules are too small to analyze with the
composition-reading tools on the rover. In the past week,
those tools were used to examine a group of berries that
had accumulated close together in a slight depression
atop a rock called "Berry Bowl." The rover's Moessbauer
spectrometer, which identifies iron-bearing minerals,
found a big difference between the batch of spherules and
a "berry-free" area of the underlying rock.

"This is the fingerprint of hematite, so we conclude that
the major iron-bearing mineral in the berries is hematite,"
said Daniel Rodionov, a rover science team collaborator
from the University of Mainz, Germany. On Earth, hematite
with the crystalline grain size indicated in the spherules
usually forms in a wet environment.

Scientists had previously deduced that the martian spherules
are concretions that grew inside water-soaked deposits.
Evidence such as interlocking spherules and random
distribution within rocks weighs against alternate
possibilities for their origin. Discovering hematite in
the rocks strengthens this conclusion. It also adds
information that the water in the rocks when the spherules
were forming carried iron, said Dr. Andrew Knoll, a science
team member from Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

"The question is whether this will be part of a still
larger story," Knoll said at a press briefing today at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Spherules below the outcrop in the crater apparently
weathered out of the outcrop, but Opportunity has also
observed plentiful spherules and concentrations of hematite
above the outcrop, perhaps weathered out of a higher
layer of once-wet deposits. The surrounding plains bear
exposed hematite identified from orbit in an area the
size of Oklahoma -- the main reason this Meridiani Planum
region of Mars was selected as Opportunity's landing site.

"Perhaps the whole floor of Meridiani Planum has a residual
layer of blueberries," Knoll suggested. "If that's true,
one might guess that a much larger volume of outcrop once
existed and was stripped away by erosion through time."

Opportunity will spend a few more days in its small crater
completing a survey of soil sites there, said Bethany
Ehlmann, a science team collaborator from Washington
University, St. Louis. One goal of the survey is to
assess distribution of the spherules farther from the
outcrop. After that, Opportunity will drive out of its
crater and head for a much larger crater with a thicker
outcrop about 750 meters (half a mile) away.

Halfway around Mars, NASA's other Mars Exploration Rover,
Spirit, has been exploring the rim of the crater nicknamed
"Bonneville," which it reached last week. A new color
panorama shows "a spectacular view of drift materials on
the floor" and other features, said Dr. John Grant, science
team member from the National Air and Space Museum in
Washington. Controllers used Spirit's wheels to scuff away
the crusted surface of a wind drift on the rim for
comparison with drift material inside the crater.

A faint feature at the horizon of the new panorama is the
wall of Gusev Crater, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) away,
said JPL's Dr. Albert Haldemann, deputy project scientist.
The wall rises about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) above
Spirit's current location roughly in the middle of Gusev
Crater. It had not been seen in earlier Spirit images
because of dust, but the air has been clearing and
visibility improving, Haldemann said.

Controllers have decided not to send Spirit into Bonneville
crater. "We didn't see anything compelling enough to take
the risk to go down in there," said JPL's Dr. Mark Adler,
mission manager. Instead, after a few more days exploring
the rim, Spirit will head toward hills to the east
informally named "Columbia Hills," which might have
exposures of layers from below or above the region's
current surface.

The main task for both rovers is to explore the areas
around their landing sites for evidence in rocks and
soils about whether those areas ever had environments
that were watery and possibly suitable for sustaining
life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project
for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Images and additional information about the project are
available from JPL at

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at

http://athena.cornell.edu/ .


-end-

The 'missing mountain' of sedimentary rock needed
to explain the uphill location of the spheres is a fatal
flaw to this idea of hematite concretions.

Is the mountain shielded by an invisible force field
Nasa?

Is the missing mountain ...clear???

Why can't we see the mountain of sedimentary
rock these iron spheres weathered out of?

Oh please Nasa, show us the mountain?
Please show us how a mountain can disappear
faster then the SOIL the spheres are lying on.

Yes, the magical 'everlasting soil' vs. the 'vanishing mountain'.


Oh that's right, this is Mars, anything is possible. Even
such a obviously ignorant theory as hematite concretions.

I've been an avid supporter of manned space flight
since I was a child. I now believe that Nasa cannot
be trusted anymore to place humans in space.


Jonathan

"Spherules below the outcrop in the crater apparently
weathered out of the outcrop, but Opportunity has also
observed plentiful spherules and concentrations of hematite
above the outcrop, perhaps weathered out of a higher
layer of once-wet deposits."

jonathan wrote:
The 'missing mountain' of sedimentary rock needed
to explain the uphill location of the spheres is a fatal
flaw to this idea of hematite concretions.

You ASSUME that they're describing a mountain, and thats the fatal flaw
of your argument. It does not say "Perhaps weathered out of a Giant
Mountain of Sedimentary Rock" ... Just a higher layer. Please make sure
you actually bother to read the releases, before spouting childish
nonsense. Thank you.

Is the mountain shielded by an invisible force field
Nasa?

You need help.

Is the missing mountain ...clear???

Serious, long-term care kind of help.

Why can't we see the mountain of sedimentary
rock these iron spheres weathered out of?

What mountain? They said nothing of any mountain.

Oh please Nasa, show us the mountain?
Please show us how a mountain can disappear
faster then the SOIL the spheres are lying on.

Again...you've misinterpreted what was said. Gee. What do mountains
BECOME when they erode away? Tough question, can you think your way
through it?!

Yes, the magical 'everlasting soil' vs. the 'vanishing mountain'.

Oh that's right, this is Mars, anything is possible. Even
such a obviously ignorant theory as hematite concretions.

Ahhh. This coming from a brilliant (Although barely literate) mind such
as yours!

I've been an avid supporter of manned space flight
since I was a child. I now believe that Nasa cannot
be trusted anymore to place humans in space.

Good for you! Fortunately, your assumptions AND opinion don't amount to
even a small hill of blueberries.

Jonathan

jonathan wrote:

Good God this is almost laughable.

So the spheres are iron balls that weathered
out of sedimentary rock. Yet, the seem to have
weathered ...uphill....above the outcrops.

Once again...you have manage to misinterperate a very simple, straight
forward release. Please, for the good of the newsgroups, I beg you to no
longer attempt to read.

Nasa merely explains that the mysteriously missing
outcrops that could account for the ....uphill...
concretions must have long ago weathered away.

Amazing!

I suppose the ....iron....balls FLOATED from some distant
crater outcrop. No, the wind carried the ...IRON... spheres
to their present location.

Did you think that up yourself? Or did you have help? Did you think at all?

No, the ...iron...balls must have rolled to their current
location above the outcrops.

That's it, they rolled, floated or were wind blown, the
....iron...balls must have done so. After all, that is the
only possible way to conclude they're a geological
concretion.

They're too small to be analyzed by the equipment on the rover, and we
only have data on them because NASA found a clump of them large enough
to analyze. You're talking as if they're are massive solid iron
basket-ball sized objects. They're BB sized objects, or smaller.

Are you saying that a BB sized object can't be moved by wind, water, or
gravity?! Are you in fact trying to tell me that no BB sized object has
EVER been moved, period!?!?!?

This is what's called contriving an explanation.
After all, the science team is made up of
geologists, God forbid they have to admit
that...they don't know.

Btw, this is what hematite concretions look like.

http://epsc.wustl.edu/admin/resource...oncretions.htm

(From the release)
(...) The rover's Moessbauer spectrometer, which identifies iron-bearing
minerals, found a big difference between the batch of spherules and
a "berry-free" area of the underlying rock.

"This is the fingerprint of hematite, so we conclude that
the major iron-bearing mineral in the berries is hematite,"
said Daniel Rodionov (...)
(End excerpt)

You are once again jumping to conclusions, with no supporting evidence.
These blueberries are not 100% hematite. They do have iron bearing
minerals. These iron-bearing minerals are likely hematite.

Let me break it down for you -

The "blueberries" ARE AT LEAST PARTIALLY composed of iron-bearing
minerals (Rather, there is a "large" difference in the surrounding
"berry-free" rock, and the "blueberry" cluster, indicating a larger
concentration of iron-bearing materials in the "blueberries"). NASA has
CONCLUDED some of the iron-bearing minerals inside of the analyzed
"blueberry" are hematite. The "blueberries" are not 100% hematite.

Any idiot can see that they are not 100% hematite. Compare the color of
the picture of the hematite concretions you've provided, and the color
of the "Blueberries" found on Mars. See a *BIG* difference? If not, you
may be color-blind. If you're not color-blind, you may just be stupid.

You lack the intelligence to open your mouth and comment on what your
GROCER does, never mind NASA and leading scientists and researchers in
thier fields. If you had even a crude intellect, I wouldn't really have
to explain to you what a simple press release is saying...I think you
should just keep your idiot mouth shut, and stick to the intellectual
kiddie pool.

"Alex Wisnieski" wrote
Are you saying that a BB sized object can't be moved by wind, water, or
gravity?! Are you in fact trying to tell me that no BB sized object has
EVER been moved, period!?!?!?

These recent conclusions were telegraphed long ago, but this drama proceeds
with the pace of a Galapagos turtle. Why did it take two months to finally
do a spectrographic test of the spherules? I posted the following last month
when a poster concluded that the berries above the outcrop indicated that
they formed there in a different manner:

Wouldn't it be odd for the spherules to form in two completely different
environments? How about this alternative: we know (or at least Dr. Squyres
said) that the outcrop is just part of a vast sheet of the same material
the
size of Oklahoma, just under the surface. Presumably that material is
loaded
throughout with these spherules.

So that sheet is probably the source of all the spherules. You can even
see
it in some of the rover photos, the spheres are concentrated where the
bedrock is below a thin layer of sand/dust:

http://www.copperas.com/astro/meridspheres.jpg

You can see the outcrop peeking through the sand in the back.

Since the bedrock is clearly being eroded away by coarse sand grains (such
grains clearly visible at work in http://tinyurl.com/2sxqk) the fine dust
in the soil is just pulverized bedrock (which has been said is very fine
grained "rock"). Since the outcrop doesn't show a hematite signature (the
spherules are invisible at TES scales to date), neither does the dust, nor
the sand. That leaves the spherules as the hematite carriers.

So across Meridiani there is a certain amount of sand that is continually
bouncing along the surface, scouring any outcrops, releasing the
spherules.
Sand is much more easily lifted by the wind than is sub-micron dust,
particularly if the surface has pebbles. The pebbles tend to stagnate the
air near the surface. If an area of pebbles happens to get covered by sand
(say a dust devil rolls through), that might just tend to level out to the
pebble layer again, because that sand would be exposed to the laminar flow
of the wind. A table in "Mars," the compendium of Mars info put out in
1992
by JPL notes that about three times as much wind speed is needed to lift
("entrain") particles of a given size from a surface covered with cobbles
and small boulders vs. a "free stream" surface. So the pebbles more or
less
stay exposed on top of the sand/dust such as we see. Just a guess!

It would be interesting to give the rock a good whack though, and see
how solid it is.

The RAT should give an estimate of that. Adirondack took a long time to
RAT
(that's a verb I guess?)--this stuff might fly away in no time. That
data's
going to be the key, along with a RAT/TES of the spherules. Pass the
popcorn.

The popcorn is stale, as the rovers press forward each day, three yards and
a cloud of dust. They really need to get out of that crater and go for the
jugular.

Joe

Maybe a bit off-topic, but I was wondering why the berries are
extremely similar in size and shape. A SOL 53 image:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...SP2956M2M1.JPG

NASA says that these things are concretions. I have looked at some
images of concretions produced here on earth, and they have much more
variety. One would think that if some natural process created the
Mars berries, they would show more differentiation.

To me, they look like they came from a factory.

Fred

Joe Knapp wrote:
"Alex Wisnieski" wrote

Are you saying that a BB sized object can't be moved by wind, water, or
gravity?! Are you in fact trying to tell me that no BB sized object has
EVER been moved, period!?!?!?


These recent conclusions were telegraphed long ago, but this drama proceeds
with the pace of a Galapagos turtle. Why did it take two months to finally
do a spectrographic test of the spherules? I posted the following last month
when a poster concluded that the berries above the outcrop indicated that
they formed there in a different manner:

Because the spherules are too small to be tested by the intrumentation
onboard the rover (According to the releases i've seen). They got lucky,
and found a clump of spherules large enough to analyze.


snip



The popcorn is stale, as the rovers press forward each day, three yards and
a cloud of dust. They really need to get out of that crater and go for the
jugular.

Joe

"Fred" wrote in message
...
Maybe a bit off-topic, but I was wondering why the berries are
extremely similar in size and shape. A SOL 53 image:


http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...EFF06ASP2956M2
M1.JPG

NASA says that these things are concretions. I have looked at some
images of concretions produced here on earth, and they have much more
variety. One would think that if some natural process created the
Mars berries, they would show more differentiation.

There does seem to be a certain maximum size. But there are
many which are much smaller. There doesn't seem to be
a visible minimum size.

To me, they look like they came from a factory.

Believe you me, they're looking for that very factory.

"jonathan" wrote in message
...


The 'missing mountain' of sedimentary rock needed
to explain the uphill location of the spheres is a fatal
flaw to this idea of hematite concretions.

Is the mountain shielded by an invisible force field
Nasa?

Is the missing mountain ...clear???

Why can't we see the mountain of sedimentary
rock these iron spheres weathered out of?

Oh please Nasa, show us the mountain?
Please show us how a mountain can disappear
faster then the SOIL the spheres are lying on.

Yes, the magical 'everlasting soil' vs. the 'vanishing mountain'.


Oh that's right, this is Mars, anything is possible. Even
such a obviously ignorant theory as hematite concretions.

I've been an avid supporter of manned space flight
since I was a child. I now believe that Nasa cannot
be trusted anymore to place humans in space.

Jonathan

What would you propose as a US alternate to conduct manned space activities?
Ralph Nesbitt

"Ralph Nesbitt" wrote in message
. ..

"jonathan" wrote in message
...


The 'missing mountain' of sedimentary rock needed
to explain the uphill location of the spheres is a fatal
flaw to this idea of hematite concretions.

Is the mountain shielded by an invisible force field
Nasa?

Is the missing mountain ...clear???

Why can't we see the mountain of sedimentary
rock these iron spheres weathered out of?

Oh please Nasa, show us the mountain?
Please show us how a mountain can disappear
faster then the SOIL the spheres are lying on.

Yes, the magical 'everlasting soil' vs. the 'vanishing mountain'.


Oh that's right, this is Mars, anything is possible. Even
such a obviously ignorant theory as hematite concretions.

I've been an avid supporter of manned space flight
since I was a child. I now believe that Nasa cannot
be trusted anymore to place humans in space.

Jonathan

What would you propose as a US alternate to conduct manned space activities?
Ralph Nesbitt


Ignore him, please. He's not a geologist, nor does he have a clue as to how
geological processes operate. Anyone who thinks that these spherules are
"Martian sponges" has been prematurely released from his straight jacket. But
then again, using his demented logic, he could also argue that the sponges
soaked up all the Martian water, which is why nearly all of it is gone, right!
lol