So, what kind of 'life' should we plant on Mars?

"Chosp" makes a good and obvious point ...
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/...4/R1102062.gif

Are you actually pretending to see thermal vents and "smokers"
in the above image?

The image is of Meridiani and the Opportunity landing eclipse. There
are no obvious thermal vents and no "smokers". Most of the craters
around have dark heavy basaltic?? dust at their bottom the same way
Endurance does and prevailing winds seems to drag a bit of that dust
along outside the crater.

Two questions:

Why do you suppose there is such a difference in albedo in the top
left and bottom right of the picture -- Why is the top-left light and
the bottom-right dark?

There is a ghostly crater / circle a couple of inches above the
eclipse and it looks like it is old and mostly smoothed away and
filled in. Do you suppose the impacting meteorite landed in water.

Michael
Mars Fossils, Pseudofossils and Problematica
http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~weinberg/mars
Even now plotting to document the cloud-top cities of Saturn.