Sedimentary films at Opportunity site.

"Greg Crinklaw" skrev i en meddelelse
...
Robert Clark wrote:

I can't think of any way of producing films or crusts like these other
than through liquid water deposition or biological activity:

Microscopic Imager :: Sol 049 (14 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m049.html


Microscopic Imager :: Sol 050 (12 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m050.html

What is it about these images that invalidates the long held hypothesis
that electrostatic or magnetic forces would result in such crusts?

If you have a link to the electrostatic or magnetic influence on Mars
surface I would like to have a closer look.

The surfaces on the pictures has a 'fused' look and we probably look at
alteration-products. It's akward to figure out the precurser on the sediment
if you have limited chemical info. I will suspect that someone has tried to
calculate/figure out the products from basaltic volcanic ash/dust? Maybe I
shouldn't comment, because I'm not a volcanologist. But doesn't it have a
pumice-like appearance? It 'looks' low density.
Maybe developement of palagonite or devitrification produce such 'svollen'
apparance from mineral-grains?

Carsten

"Carsten Troelsgaard" wrote in message ...
"Greg Crinklaw" skrev i en meddelelse
...
Robert Clark wrote:

I can't think of any way of producing films or crusts like these other
than through liquid water deposition or biological activity:

Microscopic Imager :: Sol 049 (14 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m049.html


Microscopic Imager :: Sol 050 (12 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m050.html

What is it about these images that invalidates the long held hypothesis
that electrostatic or magnetic forces would result in such crusts?

If you have a link to the electrostatic or magnetic influence on Mars
surface I would like to have a closer look.

The surfaces on the pictures has a 'fused' look and we probably look at
alteration-products. It's akward to figure out the precurser on the sediment
if you have limited chemical info. I will suspect that someone has tried to
calculate/figure out the products from basaltic volcanic ash/dust? Maybe I
shouldn't comment, because I'm not a volcanologist. But doesn't it have a
pumice-like appearance? It 'looks' low density.
It looks much like the result of dehydration... Water goes out, salts
start to aggregate in small conglomerations. Aeolian erosion also take
its part by griding the surfaces. In the end they form something
looking like "white pumice" (yes, this sounds as violent geologic
iliteracy, but I know what pumice is and I know it is usually not
white)

Maybe developement of palagonite or devitrification produce such 'svollen'
apparance from mineral-grains?

Carsten

At first sight it doesn't look like...

http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volc...nite_page.html

Sincerly, with the exception of that rounded pebble we have seen
recently, I haven't noted the presence of something looking as of
basaltic origin.

Carsten Troelsgaard wrote:

"Greg Crinklaw" skrev i en meddelelse
...

Robert Clark wrote:


I can't think of any way of producing films or crusts like these other
than through liquid water deposition or biological activity:

Microscopic Imager :: Sol 049 (14 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m049.html


Microscopic Imager :: Sol 050 (12 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m050.html

What is it about these images that invalidates the long held hypothesis
that electrostatic or magnetic forces would result in such crusts?


If you have a link to the electrostatic or magnetic influence on Mars
surface I would like to have a closer look.

Sorry, no links. I'm just recalling the comments of a MER science team
member at one of the earliest briefings; something to the effect that
electrostatic "crusts" had been proposed as far back as the Viking days.

Personally (and I'm not a geologist) it appears to me that some people
here are putting far too much emphasis on familiar earthly phenomena
when they try to interpret these images and seemingly ignoring the known
martian environmental differences (such as low temperature and air
pressure). What I've been thinking lately is that one big difference on
mars is the presence of this very fine magnetic martian dust. It's
everywhere, raining down continuously. It seems to me that such dust
might well form a sediment under the right conditions. Does anyone have
a link to studies of the behavior of similar dust particles in the lab
on earth? I wonder, for instance, if there isn't a sort of "dust cycle."


--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply remove spleen

I was referring specifically to images like this:

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...0P2956M2M1.JPG

Look especially at the left side of the image.
I don't recall seeing images of this type previously with the
microscopic imager. The speculation previously about electrostatic
charging for example at the Spirit Gusev site had to do with the
cohesiveness of the surface when the Mossbauer instrument pressed
against the surface, IF you were to assume water was not involved.
Now that we know that the outcrop rocks are sedimentary at the
Opportunity site, images as above may give an indication of the
sedimentary process occurring or ongoing.
Models for the formation of crusts or duricrusts observed on Mars
since Viking have involved liquid water:

CHEMICAL AND MINERALOGIC PROCESSES IN MARTIAN SOIL. John F. Mustard,
Department of Geological
Science, Box 1846, Brown University, Providence RI, 02912.
).
Workshop on Early Mars (1997) 3040.pdf
"On Earth, water, either as groundwater or as adsorbed
water, is considered a requirement for the formation of
near-surface and surface crusts in arid regions. Although
liquid water is unstable in the near-surface environment of
Mars, adsorbed water is stable [11]. Models that describe
the exchange of water between volatile reservoirs,
including adsorbed water in soils, show that significant
fluxes of water in and out of surface soils are expected
(mg•H2O/cm3/day) and these operate on diurnal, seasonal,
and millenial time scales [12,13]. Observations from the
dry valleys of Antarctica have shown that adsorbed water
is capable of transporting significant amounts of dissolved
ions through a soil and depositing them near and at the
surface [14]."
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/earlymars/pdf/3040.pdf

TRANSIENT LIQUID WATER AS A MECHANISM FOR INDURATION OF SOIL CRUSTS ON
MARS. G. A. Landis,1 D. Blaney 2, N. Cabrol3, B. C. Clark 4, J.
Farmer5, J. Grotzinger6, R. Greeley5, S. M. McLennan
7, L. Richter8, A. Yen2, and the MER Athena Science Team, 1NASA John
Glenn Research Center, mailstop 302-,
2000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland, OH 44135; ,
2Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak
Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109; 3 NASA Ames, Moffett field, CA;
4Lockheed-Martin Corporation, Denver CO
5Arizona State University, Tucson, AZ; 6Massachussetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA; 7SUNY at Stony
Brook, Stony Brook, NY; 8DLR, Germany
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV (2004) 2188.pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/2188.pdf



Bob Clark


Greg Crinklaw wrote in message ...
Carsten Troelsgaard wrote:

"Greg Crinklaw" skrev i en meddelelse
...

Robert Clark wrote:


I can't think of any way of producing films or crusts like these other
than through liquid water deposition or biological activity:

Microscopic Imager :: Sol 049 (14 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m049.html


Microscopic Imager :: Sol 050 (12 images)
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...nity_m050.html

What is it about these images that invalidates the long held hypothesis
that electrostatic or magnetic forces would result in such crusts?


If you have a link to the electrostatic or magnetic influence on Mars
surface I would like to have a closer look.

Sorry, no links. I'm just recalling the comments of a MER science team
member at one of the earliest briefings; something to the effect that
electrostatic "crusts" had been proposed as far back as the Viking days.

Personally (and I'm not a geologist) it appears to me that some people
here are putting far too much emphasis on familiar earthly phenomena
when they try to interpret these images and seemingly ignoring the known
martian environmental differences (such as low temperature and air
pressure). What I've been thinking lately is that one big difference on
mars is the presence of this very fine magnetic martian dust. It's
everywhere, raining down continuously. It seems to me that such dust
might well form a sediment under the right conditions. Does anyone have
a link to studies of the behavior of similar dust particles in the lab
on earth? I wonder, for instance, if there isn't a sort of "dust cycle."


--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply remove spleen

Robert Clark wrote:

I was referring specifically to images like this:

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gal...0P2956M2M1.JPG

Look especially at the left side of the image.
I don't recall seeing images of this type previously with the
microscopic imager. The speculation previously about electrostatic
charging for example at the Spirit Gusev site had to do with the
cohesiveness of the surface when the Mossbauer instrument pressed
against the surface, IF you were to assume water was not involved.
Now that we know that the outcrop rocks are sedimentary at the
Opportunity site, images as above may give an indication of the
sedimentary process occurring or ongoing.

Ongoing...? The evidence for water is in the distant past, not now.
Mars is currently a very dry planet that cannot sustain liquid water at
(or even near) the surface. The only ongoing sedimentary process that
could involve water would be deep beneath the surface.

Also, the image you point to is of an outcrop rock poking through the
surface. I see no crust.

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply remove spleen

"Robert Clark" skrev i en meddelelse
om...


Thanks, that was a most enlightening post.
In the beginning of the missions Jonathan put his ideas forward and added
this image.

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/01/24/

At the time I put forward proposals for an origin from 'cold venting' from
some of the craters for some of the spheres - well inspired from the lower
left picture on the link showing what looks like 'dark smoke' emanating from
the craterfloor (upper right corner).
I was immediately and persistently attacked by Mr. Elifrits at this time -
without getting any arguments for the attacks. As better experienced
Mars-explorers dismissed the idea in the group too, I got hung up on
surviving my right to express myself freely in this forum, instead of
following the idea. As anyone has seen, this forum has been suffocated by
bio-related bombardments of insolent posts ever since.
Since your post makes indeed the 'cold venting' a viable origin for some of
the spheres (as possibly Type II dark streaks), I find that I may have been
'right' all along. That I may not be the original source seems fair as the
description of Type II dark streaks dates back to 1997.
As happy a discovery this may be to me, the whole experience of
participating in this forum is none the less so discouraged that I shall be
surprised to see me back here again.

Carsten

March 21, 2004

Greg Crinklaw wrote:

Ongoing...? The evidence for water is in the distant past, not now.
Mars is currently a very dry planet that cannot sustain liquid water
at (or even near) the surface. The only ongoing sedimentary process
that could involve water would be deep beneath the surface.

Again, not even close. We see numerous dark streaks running down the
hills all over Mars, and they aren't 'dry dust avalanches' or carbon
dioxide.

http://www.martiansoil.com/archives/...of_the_day.php

March 21, 2004 - Picture of the Day. (I was unable to extract context.)

You are an uninformed idiot, Crinklaw.

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




Also, the image you point to is of an outcrop rock poking through the
surface. I see no crust.

(Robert Clark) wrote in message . com...

Sorry I can't post the picture, but a photo in the local paper
yesterday
(Adelaide Advertiser) has an uncanny likeness to dried up
water-courses in the Australian deserts (known as wadis here). The
depth of the image is not given, but the curves along the edge of the
sandy looking part seem like typical water erosion and deposition, and
the apparent level nature also.

Jim G

Carsten Troelsgaard wrote:

....
I was immediately and persistently attacked by Mr. Elifrits at
this time

That's what killfiles / blocked senders lists are for.

March 21, 2004

Icarus wrote:

Carsten Troelsgaard wrote:
...
I was immediately and persistently attacked by Mr. Elifrits at
this time

That's what killfiles / blocked senders lists are for.

He doesn't know how to use one, and he is unable to google it out.

X-Newsreader:
Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106

X-MimeOLE:
Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106

http://www.hyphenologist.co.uk/killf...tm.htm#Outlook
Express and Outlook Newsreader

Apparently it isn't a very good newsreader. He's playing with fire,
actually, and probably doesn't even know it.

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