Earth Has 'Blueberries' Like Mars (Forwarded)

News and Public Relations
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah

Media Contacts:

Marjorie Chan, chair and professor of geology and geophysics
Available afternoon June 15-morning June 17 only via cellular,
sporadic availability via cellular June 18-July 4, then at office July 5
onward by phone (801) 581-7162 or 581-6553 or email


Brenda Beitler, geology graduate student
Available June 14-16 in office (801) 581-7089 or via cellular,
. Sporadic availability via cellular June 17-
20.

Bill Parry, emeritus professor of geology and geophysics
Office (801) 581-6217, or
. Unavailable June 20-July 4.

Lee Siegel, science news specialist, University of Utah Public Relations
office (801) 581-8993,

June 16, 2004

Earth Has 'Blueberries' Like Mars

'Moqui Marbles' Formed in Groundwater in Utah's National Parks

Even before marble-shaped pebbles nicknamed "blueberries" were
discovered on Mars by the Opportunity rover, University of Utah
geologists studied similar rocks in Utah's national parks and
predicted such stones would be found on the Red Planet.

In a study published in the June 17 issue of the journal Nature, the
Utah researchers suggest both the Martian and Utah rocks --
known as hematite concretions -- formed underground when
minerals precipitated from flowing groundwater.

"We came up with the 'recipe' for blueberries," says Marjorie Chan,
chair and professor of geology and geophysics at the University of
Utah. "Before Opportunity landed, we thought there might be
hematite concretions on Mars. That was based on our study of
hematite-rich regions of southern Utah, where hematite balls are
found in national parks and have long been a geological oddity that
shows up in many rock shops."

The round rocks are found in southern Utah in Zion and Capitol
Reef national parks, Grand Staircase-Escalante National
Monument, Snow Canyon State Park and the Moab area.

Their diameters range from one-25th of an inch to 8 inches or more.
They are known to New Agers as "moqui marbles." Some are the
size of small blueberries like those on Mars.

Chan and her colleagues believe the Utah concretions formed
perhaps 25 million years ago when minerals precipitated from
groundwater flowing through much older Navajo sandstone, the
spectacular red rock in southern Utah.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Opportunity
robot rover vehicle landed on Mars' Meridiani Planum on Jan. 25.
Five days later, it detected hematite within gray pebbles dotting the
landing site, and such pebbles later were spotted embedded in a
rock outcrop. Cornell University scientist Steve Squyres, who heads
the Opportunity science team, said Feb. 9 the small spheres look
"like blueberries in a muffin" and might be concretions.

In their Nature paper, Chan and colleagues say the Martian
"blueberries" may have formed in a similar manner to those in Utah,
namely, when significant volumes of groundwater flowed through
permeable rock, and chemical reactions triggered minerals to
precipitate and start forming a layered, spherical ball.

"Given the similarities between the marbles in Utah and on Mars,
additional scientific scrutiny of the Utah concretions and how they
form will probably shed further light on the similar phenomenon on
Mars," University of Washington scientist David Catling wrote in a
Nature commentary accompanying the University of Utah study.

The concretions may bear on the search for evidence of past life on
Mars because bacteria on Earth can make concretions form more
quickly. Chan and colleagues plan to analyze whether there is
evidence of past microbial activity in Utah concretions.

Chan conducted the new study with geology graduate student
Brenda Beitler and emeritus professor of geology Bill Parry, both at
the University of Utah; geologist Jens Ormo of the National Institute
of Aerospace Technology in Madrid, Spain; and planetary scientist
Goro Komatsu of the International Research School of Planetary
Sciences at G. d'Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy.

Martian blueberries and marbles of the spirits

The Utah and Mars hematite concretions have similarities and
differences.

In Utah and likely on Mars, "you have rocks that had iron in them
originally," says Beitler. "Fluids travel through these rocks and leach
out the iron. The water moves through cracks, holes, layers or
pores until it reaches some place where the chemistry is different
and causes the iron to precipitate out of the water as hematite."

A major difference is that the Martian "blueberries" probably are
pure hematite -- a form of iron oxide that is gray because it has a
larger crystal structure than the reddish form of iron oxide,
commonly known as rust. The Utah concretions are mostly
sandstone, cemented by hematite that makes up a few percent to
perhaps one-third of the rock. The Martian concretions likely
precipitated from acidic groundwater. Those in Utah precipitated
when hydrocarbon-rich, briny fluids encountered oxygen-rich
groundwater.

After the Utah concretions formed in groundwater, the surrounding
Navajo sandstone slowly eroded away over millions of years, so the
hard, erosion-resistant concretions accumulated on the ground,
often in great numbers.

"The loose Utah concretions roll like marbles into depressions,
forming 'puddles,' just like their Martian counterparts," Catling wrote.
"The Hopi Indians have a legend that 'moqui,' or spirits of their
ancestors, played games of marbles with the hematite concretions
in the American southwest. Although anthropologists discourage
use of the word 'moqui' to be respectful to Native Americans, New
Age gem collectors sell concretions as 'moqui marbles' and claim
that they are endowed with metaphysical powers."

Hematite, water and life

In 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor orbiting Mars detected what
appeared to be a large area of hematite on Meridiani Planum. The
broad plain was picked as Opportunity's landing site because
scientists wanted to study the hematite, which almost always forms
in water.

Scientists are interested in whether water once existed on Mars (or
now exists beneath its surface) because water is necessary for life -
- and the possibility of life beyond Earth is one of the great
questions long pondered by humanity.

"On Earth, whenever we find water, we find life -- in surface water
or underground water, hot water or cold water -- any place there is
water on Earth there are microbes, there is life," says study co-
author Bill Parry. "That's the bottom line: hematite is linked to life."

While other evidence from Opportunity suggests there once may
have been standing water on Meridiani Planum, the Utah team's
study strongly indicates the Martian "blueberries" probably formed
in groundwater and not in surface water.

"The 'blueberries' easily could have formed in groundwater before
there was standing water, if that did exist," Chan says.

Other scientists previously offered various explanations for
Meridiani Planum's hematite, including that the mineral precipitated
in large lakes or in hot springs when Mars' ancient volcanoes were
active, or that hematite was left when water leached away other
minerals, or that it formed when volcanic ash deposits were altered
chemically.

Like Southern Utah, Like Mars

Chan says her team long suspected concretions like those in Utah
might be found on Mars. The idea first was suggested by Ormo and
Komatsu in a 2003 scientific abstract that got little if any attention.
Ormo contacted Chan in spring 2003 and they started collaborating.

The researchers completed a much broader but yet-unpublished
study last year indicating that several geological features were seen
both in aerial photos of southern Utah's hematite-rich areas and in
images of Mars' hematite regions taken by orbiting spacecraft.
These features include large rocky landforms shaped like knobs,
pipes and buttes, and places where bleached-looking rock forms
white sediment beds or ring-shapes on the surface. Some of the
pipes and other features are tens of yards long or wide.

The geologists determined the processes responsible for these
large-scale features in Utah involved the flow of briny groundwater
saturated with natural gas that bleaches sandstone, and that such
groundwater flow, the precipitation of hard hematite-cemented rock
and the later erosion of surrounding softer rock also would explain
the formation of the erosion-resistant pipes, buttes, knobs and
concretions. They concluded a similar process could have formed
concretions and larger landforms on Mars.

Chan says studying concretions from Utah and Mars "will help us
learn more about the history of Mars. When we have something to
compare it to, it's a lot easier to figure out."

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

[Image 1:
http://www.utah.edu/unews/news_image...jun/press2.jpg (1.5MB)]
University of Utah geologists say marble-shaped rocks known as
concretions from Utah (left) formed millions of years ago in
groundwater-soaked rocks, providing clues to the origin of similar
concretions or so-called "blueberries" (right) discovered on Mars by
NASA's Opportunity rover. The Utah concretions shown on the left
range in diameter from one twenty-fifth of an inch to 2 inches, while
the Martian versions on the right all measure less than one-fifth of
an inch in diameter. (Scale of photos is different.)

Credit: Left image by Marjorie Chan and Brenda Beitler, University
of Utah. Right image by NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Cornell
University.

[Image 2:
http://www.utah.edu/unews/news_images_2004/jun/SF1.jpg (1.2MB)]
Marble-like rocks known as hematite concretions litter the surface
of Navajo sandstone at Grand Staircase-Escalante National
Monument in southern Utah.

The rocks accumulated after softer surrounding sandstone eroded
away. They are similar to the so-called "blueberries" found on Mars
by NASA's Opportunity rover.

Credit: Brenda Beitler, University of Utah.

[Image 3:
http://www.utah.edu/unews/news_images_2004/jun/SF2.jpg (889KB)]
Closeup of hematite concretions from Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument in southern Utah. University of Utah geologists
say the mostly round rocks formed millions of years ago
underground in porous, water-soaked sandstone, and may provide
clues to similar stones found on Mars by the Opportunity rover.

Credit: Brenda Beitler, University of Utah.

jonathan wrote:


So Nature is saying ...from the rocks....comes soil.

Gee...all this time I grew up believing that soil forms into rocks~

It does.

They results are usually called sedimentary rocks.


--
Peter Fairbrother

Peter Fairbrother wrote:
jonathan wrote:


So Nature is saying ...from the rocks....comes soil.

Gee...all this time I grew up believing that soil forms into rocks~


It does.

They results are usually called sedimentary rocks.



Only one problem with the 'revelation' the Earth has blueberries like
Mars....OLD NEWS...and last I saw Utah it is covered with those
sedimentary rocks, not a whole lot of volcanism. I heard the
'concretion' story on the radio, too, and they made a big deal like
someone had just discovered concretions for the first time.

I am still bemused by scientists and reporters being utterly amazed that
geological principles work the same throughout the universe and the
concept that water is not unique to earth. Perhaps because of early
interest in astronomy, off-earth water is a ho-hum to me.

We need to move on to something of interest.

Jo

Jo Schaper wrote in message ...

We need to move on to something of interest.

Jo

Oh, Dear, ...I wonder what that could be? Gerard Fryer mentioned
something a while back about a graded bed in a river bank needing more
sussing out. (Something to do with Bretz. )

So, nuthing takes your interest Jo? ..It's all sewn up, eh? Stu's
retiring, and leaving it all to his protege... Ah, I know what you
mean, ...it's really rough. There's a whole new generation
reinventing the wheel. In a little while there'll be nothing of value
left, ..it will have all gone down the gurgler, spokes and all. Why
not help me think up a new name for plate tectonics - like "Scary
Awsome Tectonics maybe". (George will find us a link.) Git yorn
'tillery, ...we'll git out on th'road thar, ..an' burn 'em.

(Don roughtalks Jo into arson attacks)

"Andrew Yee" wrote in message
...

Earth Has 'Blueberries' Like Mars

I've seen rocks that look very similar to the "blueberries" on Mars, in a
cave.

-Dave
http://www.daveboll.com/

don findlay wrote:

Jo Schaper wrote in message ...


We need to move on to something of interest.

Jo


Oh, Dear, ...I wonder what that could be? Gerard Fryer mentioned
something a while back about a graded bed in a river bank needing more
sussing out. (Something to do with Bretz. )

So, nuthing takes your interest Jo? ..It's all sewn up, eh? Stu's
retiring, and leaving it all to his protege... Ah, I know what you
mean, ...it's really rough. There's a whole new generation
reinventing the wheel. In a little while there'll be nothing of value
left, ..it will have all gone down the gurgler, spokes and all. Why
not help me think up a new name for plate tectonics - like "Scary
Awsome Tectonics maybe". (George will find us a link.) Git yorn
'tillery, ...we'll git out on th'road thar, ..an' burn 'em.

(Don roughtalks Jo into arson attacks)

Although you have never met me, Don, you know me better than that I will
start arson attacks, or flame wars or something. *|;-)

There are still lots of things to find out about geology. Plenty of
questions out there. I agree with you, I have been seeing a whole lot of
wheel-inventing lately, especially by young people bucking against the
ever-present 'generation-gap'. My dad taught me ignorance is not a
problem. No one knows everything. But it is the stupid person who is too
stubborn to ask around for an answer.

We recently had a 23 acre lake in an upper-middle class part of town go
down a sinkhole in 3 days.They traced the water to a spring 4 miles
away. The whole thing is a stinky mudflat in the middle of lots of
pricey homes. The home owners, (many professional, white collar college
graduates amongst them) are on TV asking why engineering firms cannot
guarantee that they can fix the sinkhole, so the lake will never leak
again. It is obvious they are ignorant of the behavior of sinkholes. But
instead of picking up a geology text, or listening to the engineers,
they want their lake back, and they want it now, and they want it as
cheaply fixed permanently as possible. That is stupidity. While their
personal situation is unfortunate, they should have learned about
geohazards somewhere along the line. They didn't, even though Missouri
has long been touted as "The Cave State."

At the same time, a local university, about 30 miles from the New Madrid
Fault, which for many years had an excellent earthquake studies part of
there geology department, will have no more geology department at all
once the current juniors and seniors graduate. Geology isn't important,
unless your house sits on the planet Earth.

I don't have many answers. I'm just tired of hearing the same ones (like
iron concretions exist on Earth, something I've known since I was about
10), presented as breaking news,
best regards
Jo Schaper

"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
Peter Fairbrother wrote:
jonathan wrote:


So Nature is saying ...from the rocks....comes soil.

Gee...all this time I grew up believing that soil forms into rocks~


It does.

They results are usually called sedimentary rocks.



Only one problem with the 'revelation' the Earth has blueberries like
Mars....OLD NEWS...and last I saw Utah it is covered with those
sedimentary rocks, not a whole lot of volcanism. I heard the
'concretion' story on the radio, too, and they made a big deal like
someone had just discovered concretions for the first time.

I am still bemused by scientists and reporters being utterly amazed that
geological principles work the same throughout the universe and the
concept that water is not unique to earth. Perhaps because of early
interest in astronomy, off-earth water is a ho-hum to me.



On NRP, the discussion of that Nature article finished with the
talking head saying the following. "Some believe they're
bacterial concretions, but it's far too early to say that, as of
yet".

What boggles me is the preference of geology for an explanation
over life. The idea that life is something completely separate from
geology seems carved in stone. As if something magical has to
happen to make the transition. That is just not the case, evolution
is a seamless process from geology to life.

Darwinian evolution is a special case of the processes that
drive everything in the universe towards increasing order
and organization. The mathematics for the evolution of
geology and life are the same. Either simply needs the
extremes in possibility space to persistently
communicate.

The idea of complex adaptive systems applies to the
non-living, living, market and even spiritual systems
with the same ease.




DYNAMICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS
Textbook for seminar/course on complex systems
Full online text

"For many years, professional specialization has led science to progressive
isolation of individual disciplines. How is it possible that well-separated
fields such as molecular biology and economics can suddenly
become unified in a single discipline?"
http://www.necsi.org/publications/dcs/



It's possible! Every week I'm day-trading using the same
concepts I use to look at the rover pics. I'm averaging
20% a month return trading with my cell phone while busy
at work. Look up the ten day chart of nmgc for a typical
thunderstorm/emotion I played today. When all the primary
variables of a system are 'complex' at the same time, the system
organizes, volatility and predictability converge
to simultaneous maximums. It springs to life and
behaves in a universal way. Which is great for stock
trading since that means no system specific info is
needed to play the stock. I can move between any
stock, any industry, without knowing a whit about
either.



Far from equilibrium is where it's at....self organization, life
and ~predictability.


Jonathan

s








We need to move on to something of interest.

Jo

In article , Jo Schaper wrote:
Geology isn't important,
unless your house sits on the planet Earth.

GRIN

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland,
Location: 57°10'11" N, 02°08'43" W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233

In article , Dave & Janelle wrote:
I've seen rocks that look very similar to the "blueberries" on Mars, in a
cave.

"Cave Pearls"?
Seen them too. And forming in flooded cave passages too.

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland,
Location: 57°10'11" N, 02°08'43" W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233

Jo Schaper wrote in message ...
don findlay wrote:

Jo Schaper wrote in message ...


We need to move on to something of interest.

Jo


Oh, Dear, ...I wonder what that could be? Gerard Fryer mentioned
something a while back about a graded bed in a river bank needing more
sussing out. (Something to do with Bretz. )

So, nothing takes your interest Jo? ..It's all sewn up, eh? Stu's
retiring, and leaving it all to his protege... Ah, I know what you
mean, ...it's really rough. There's a whole new generation
reinventing the wheel. In a little while there'll be nothing of value
left, ..it will have all gone down the gurgler, spokes and all. Why
not help me think up a new name for plate tectonics - like "Scary
Awsome Tectonics maybe". (George will find us a link.) Git yorn
'tillery, ...we'll git out on th'road thar, ..an' burn 'em.

(Don roughtalks Jo into arson attacks)

Although you have never met me, Don, you know me better than that I will
start arson attacks, or flame wars or something. *|;-)

This is just too, too bad Jo. I have noticed your level-headedness
over the time, and thought this could be to advantage. We could
embark on a 'bad cop' - 'good cop' routine. I could work them up, get
them excited, and then you could give them one in the solar plexus on
your-level headed way past. There's Stuart, not content with the
chill of outer space driving mantle slabs down, envisages polar ice
pushing them around (sideways). I would have thought if there was any
pushing going on it would push the crust first, and give us overriding
zones all around antarctica, but no he reckons it gets stuck into the
mantle straight away. No decoupling. Evidently outer space chilling
makes the mantle go down, but antarctic chilling makes it go sideways.
Very versatile thinking, but he's had 'preparation', learning about
active and passive continental margins. (I reckon he could do with a
bucketting to cool him down on that one.) (....)


There are still lots of things to find out about geology. Plenty of
questions out there. I agree with you, I have been seeing a whole lot of
wheel-inventing lately, especially by young people bucking against the
ever-present 'generation-gap'. My dad taught me ignorance is not a
problem. No one knows everything. But it is the stupid person who is too
stubborn to ask around for an answer.

It is the greatest hindrance to progress: being afraid to let
ignorance show. Can be deadly though.


We recently had a 23 acre lake in an upper-middle class part of town go
down a sinkhole in 3 days.They traced the water to a spring 4 miles
away. The whole thing is a stinky mudflat in the middle of lots of
pricey homes. The home owners, (many professional, white collar college
graduates amongst them) are on TV asking why engineering firms cannot
guarantee that they can fix the sinkhole, so the lake will never leak
again. It is obvious they are ignorant of the behavior of sinkholes. But
instead of picking up a geology text, or listening to the engineers,
they want their lake back, and they want it now, and they want it as
cheaply fixed permanently as possible. That is stupidity.

Just an example of them watching too much telly, and films about
pouring metal to the core, and having their astonishment quelled by
'experts' full of positive opinions about the possibility, themselves
bent on their own agendas. John Hernland a while back was offended
that aspersions should be cast at this sort of publicity, and top
reputations. If we start educating the public about pouring metal to
the core, you can hardly blame them for wanting their ground back (and
a dino in their back yard).

While their
personal situation is unfortunate, they should have learned about
geohazards somewhere along the line. They didn't, even though Missouri
has long been touted as "The Cave State."

At the same time, a local university, about 30 miles from the New Madrid
Fault, which for many years had an excellent earthquake studies part of
there geology department, will have no more geology department at all
once the current juniors and seniors graduate. Geology isn't important,
unless your house sits on the planet Earth.

I don't have many answers. I'm just tired of hearing the same ones (like
iron concretions exist on Earth, something I've known since I was about
10), presented as breaking news,
best regards
Jo Schaper

The issue is not Geology, it's political - funding and who gets it.
It's like the lotto - if you ain't 'in it' you won't 'win it'. And if
you want to be in it to win it, only a fool takes the controversial
position. Reinvention has a special place in that, in that people are
not only softened up, they are jaded as well. It's perfect media
fodder - allows hyping up without being controversial. Like Bjorn
said, I'm the only person he's ever come across who doesn't 'believe'
in plate tectonics. It's not true of course, but it's close enough to
make his point. How can that be in a world full of 'researchers',
bent on 'enquiry'? What 'enquiry' I ask you (all).? I'm still the
only one, amongst the hundred + thousands of entries on plate
tectonics since Google started up has used the string "how transforms
form" and/or "how spreading-ridges form". And some others equally
direct. How's that? It's just not possible to 'enquire' without
using the word 'how?'. And not possible to write up the results
without it either. What are they enquiring about? Expansion,
....even if it's not 'right', gives a geological picture sufficiently
opposite to the one about plate movement, to warrant consideration at
the very least as a hypothetical for understanding earthquake
distribution and pattern. But you can see from the attitude John
Vidale took a while back how that goes down. Concept rules. To my
way of thinking they're a mostly a dead loss.

(bad cop) (rootin' tootin' and SHOOTIN'!) (Yes, I know, ...live by
the gun and die by the gun) But I'm just trying to get somebody to
make sense... of all the stuff that strikes me as nonsense (but not
getting very far), and trying meanwhile to put an alternative picture
around it all. And getting sledged either for being too clever by
half - or too dumb. This is how science (and the community of
scientists) behaves itself. It's a study in itself. (Kuhn) I
reckon a few arsonists around the place wouldn't go amiss, actually.