Spherule petal bifurcation

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote in message ...
March 12, 2004

jerry warner wrote:

Try some scientific methods just once.

Good advice. Why not follow it and "wait" for the evidence rather than inventing,
ie. you own? The rovers are there. You are here. Small important distinction in "hydroxy-lations"!

Here is the evidence that you are a moron.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...oxylation+mars

snip

"Although direct evidence is lacking, indirect evidence suggests that
iron-rich clay minerals or poorly-ordered chemical equivalents are
widespread on the Martian surface. Such clays can act as sources or
sinks for hydrogen ('hydrogen sponges'). Ferrous clays can lose
hydrogen and ferric clays gain it by the coupled substitution
Fe(3+)O(Fe(2+)OH)-1, equivalent to minus atomic H. This 'oxy-clay'
substitution involves only proton and electron migration through the
crystal structure, and therefore occurs nondestructively and
reversibly, at relatively low temperatures. The reversible,
low-temperature nature of this reaction contrasts with the
irreversible nature of destructive dehydroxylation (H2O loss) suffered
by clays heated to high temperatures. In theory, metastable ferric
oxy-clays formed by dehydrogenation of ferrous clays over geologic
time could, if exposed to water vapor, extract the hydrogen from it,
releasing oxygen. "

"Thus we conclude that UV-stimulated dehydroxylation is not a
significant process at the Martian surface and that iron
oxyhydroxides, if formed during an earlier water-rich environment,
should still be found on Mars today. The lack of clear evidence for
iron oxyhydroxides at the Martian surface further suggests that Mars'
surface was never warm and wet for a long enough period of time for
Earth-like weathering to have occurred."

" Ferroan saponite precipitated from ground water would undergo
oxidation, resulting in partial dehydroxylation of the clay with
finely dispersed ferric oxide or oxyhydroxide as a by-product. The
typical spectral signature of well-crystallized clays would be
obscured in such particles (19), and however old they might be, their
survival to the present day is obviously favored in the frigid martian
environment "

those were from the above link you gave. perhaps it would be better
to say what specifically you were thinking of. They don't seem to
indicate that haematite spherules must be formed by association with
biological processes. Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not. how
would formation by biological processes explain the 'petal shape'?
Does this structure not occur in concretions? It seems like it does,
from some of the other pics people have been posting.

you also said in reponse to someone:
"You aren't chatting, you are dismissing, skeptic."

being skeptical is a good thing here, and this statement doesn't jive
with your previous urging for scientific consideration of the data.
Skepticism is fundamental to science. The person you were talking to
didn't dismiss your ideas, but they did recognize that the available
evidence doesn't seem to support them.

IOW, what is your evidence that these spherules are infact formed by
biological processes?

March 19, 2004

"R.Schenck" wrote:

"Although direct evidence is lacking, indirect evidence suggests that
iron-rich clay minerals or poorly-ordered chemical equivalents are
widespread on the Martian surface. Such clays can act as sources or
sinks for hydrogen ('hydrogen sponges'). Ferrous clays can lose
hydrogen and ferric clays gain it by the coupled substitution
Fe(3+)O(Fe(2+)OH)-1, equivalent to minus atomic H. This 'oxy-clay'
substitution involves only proton and electron migration through the
crystal structure, and therefore occurs nondestructively and
reversibly, at relatively low temperatures. The reversible,
low-temperature nature of this reaction contrasts with the
irreversible nature of destructive dehydroxylation (H2O loss) suffered
by clays heated to high temperatures. In theory, metastable ferric
oxy-clays formed by dehydrogenation of ferrous clays over geologic
time could, if exposed to water vapor, extract the hydrogen from it,
releasing oxygen. "

Thank-you so much for throwing up on a science newsgroup, you clearly have demonstrated a great ability to
'cut and paste'.

"Thus we conclude that UV-stimulated dehydroxylation is not a
significant process at the Martian surface and that iron
oxyhydroxides, if formed during an earlier water-rich environment,
should still be found on Mars today. The lack of clear evidence for
iron oxyhydroxides at the Martian surface further suggests that Mars'
surface was never warm and wet for a long enough period of time for
Earth-like weathering to have occurred."

Which appears to conflict with newly available evidence.

" Ferroan saponite precipitated from ground water would undergo
oxidation, resulting in partial dehydroxylation of the clay with
finely dispersed ferric oxide or oxyhydroxide as a by-product. The
typical spectral signature of well-crystallized clays would be
obscured in such particles (19), and however old they might be, their
survival to the present day is obviously favored in the frigid martian
environment "

those were from the above link you gave. perhaps it would be better
to say what specifically you were thinking of. They don't seem to
indicate that haematite spherules must be formed by association with
biological processes. Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not.

How insightful.

how
would formation by biological processes explain the 'petal shape'?
Does this structure not occur in concretions? It seems like it does,
from some of the other pics people have been posting.

I never claim the petals represented anything, I simply noted their observation.

you also said in reponse to someone:
"You aren't chatting, you are dismissing, skeptic."

Again, another observation, duly noted.

being skeptical is a good thing here

No it's not, skepticism is never good, your brand of skepicism is especially bad. Crackpottery actually.

and this statement doesn't jive
with your previous urging for scientific consideration of the data.

Actually, the link was presented to support the widespread use of the term dehydroxylation to inorganic
processes. Clearly the spherules are minerals. The question is, are they inorganically precipitated minerals,
biomineralizations, or diagenetically modified fossils.

Skepticism is fundamental to science.

Sure, if you are a crackpot, which you demonstrably are.

The person you were talking to
didn't dismiss your ideas, but they did recognize that the available
evidence doesn't seem to support them.

And neither he, nor you, actually presented any evidence, links to evidence, or scholarly references. You,
however, managed to regurgitate some uncited vomit.

IOW, what is your evidence that these spherules are infact formed by
biological processes?

Science is not about facts, it is about evidence.

I have already presented ample evidence and a plausible line of reasoning why these concretions may be or
biological origin. You may, if you wish, propose the hypothesis that they are purely inorganic concretions,
and then you may supply evidence demonstrating that claim, but what I would be more particularly interested
in, is any evidence that you are not an incurable crackpot, and any credible reason why I should keep
commenting on your ridiculous usenet posts, as your usenet posting history provides ample evidence that you
are simply another crackpot, hung up on the obsolete notion that skepticism without evidence is a fundamental
element of *the* scientific method, as outlined by the federal regulations, rules and laws of *the*
established scientific method.

Crackpots, they are everywhere, and you are clearly one of them.

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net

On 19 Mar 2004, R.Schenck wrote:
| |How does your theory explain why there are no sponges themselves
| |observed??
|
| hmmm... Good question. Because they look like sponges, but replicate
| in some other method, not as colonies but as seed-like things?
|
|fair enough, but then why called them sponges at all?

If they were houselike structures that were abandoned by the little
things that generated them, they could have filled up with excreta
and sediment, and then you could add a million years to them, and
there you have it.

|why say they are gemmules too? Why aren't these the adult organisms?

How many spherules do you have to disassemble, before you know how
they generally get put together?

|Why look for other evidence that confirms the 'sponge hypothesis' in
|this sense, if we don't acutally maintain the sponge hypothesis. Also,
|if spicules are present, as has been maintained, then adult sponges
|really should be there.

How much force can a typical spherule withstand? If we could somehow
sort them and collect them, piling them up in one place, maybe - in the
future - a rover could run over them. Back and forth. And see what they
look like afterwards. That would give us some idea of how much force it
takes to smash or grind them. If they are mostly iron, they should be
easy to collect using a magnet. Somebody said they appear to have
layers, as if laminated from millions of years of rolling about in the
thin scum of a brine pond. We may not have any brine ponds any more,
but rolling around on that kind of stuff may have caused them to appear
to have layers, or laminations.

| |You definitely need more that a few 'correlations' of some relatively
| |simple features on some of the spherules to be able to say that these
| |things are actual sponge gemmules.

Fair enough.

| |And you need to decide if they are fresh or salt water, or could be
| |either, because you'ev been advocating fresh water but then some of
| |what you've been talking about is salt water specific.

What are the capabilities of the next couple rovers? Someone said that
two more were going to be arriving in two years, unless I got my wires
crossed. Are they identical to these rovers?