Mars Exploration Rovers Update - February 13, 2004

February 15, 2004

George wrote:

If...they...are...ancient...I ...would...not...expect...some..to
be...pristine.


Why? Very little aside from wind is occuring that can alter anything on
the surface. It certainly doesn't rain. And any frost action is extremely
limited in scope and intensity. The surface of most of the planet has been
left unaltered, except for wind effects and the occasional meteor impact,
for perhaps billions of years. The landscapes you are seeing at both sites
are very, very old.

That is absurd. If that were the case, the cratering would be much more uniform
planet wide. There is wide scale evidence of surface subsidence via ice removal
and water outflow almost everywhere on the planet. That almost certainly has
modified the surface.

You are an idiot, crackpot. Give it up.

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

"Joe Knapp" wrote in message
.com...

" George" wrote
It has been my understanding from reading the interviews of the project
scientists that they were referred to as blueberries because of their
shape
and size, not because of their color.

Mark Lemmon: "We've looked at the floor of the crater itself and it's
exciting. In particular, this area is covered by finescale sandgrains and
these irregular grains coming down from the outcrop potentially and the
most
spectacular are these rounded spherules being called blueberries because
they're relatively bluer than their surroundings." (Thursday, Feb. 12)

If you miss them, a lot of the press conferences are archived on C-SPAN;
unfortunately they don't have that one though.

In addition, there is no way that you
can look at the picture you posted above and say that the blue color is
due
to the spherules simply because you cannot even see then at that
resolution.

But you can see the blue color at that resolution, which the blueberries
are
in such an RGB composite (with overemphasized blue).


On the other hand, you can look at this image and get a clearer view of
the
color of the spherules.


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rove...atural-med.jpg

Officially they are calling the color of the spherules "gray." Or at least
grayer than the matrix. Gray hematite anyone?

Plagioclase can have a blue-gray tint as well, and is commonly found in
spherules of impact origin. Let's wait for the TES analysis shall we (if
they ever are able to analyze the spherules at all) before we start giving
them a mineralogical association? Agreed.

Here is a link to the TES data collected by the rover:


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rove..._strip-med.jpg

The data is superimposed onto the panorama of the outcrop and edge of
the
crater. If you will note that in the center of the image is the area of
the
outcrop first examined by the rover. That area had a lot of spherules
on
the ground around the outcrop (the outcrop referred to as "stone
mountain"),
within the outcrop itself, and below and above it. Note that this area
is
hematite-poor. And the outcrop itself was hematite-poor. For
verification,
please note this image of the area I'm referring to:



http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rove...ontext-med.jpg



http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...treach1_br.jpg

However, speaking of resolution, this is the area of the "hematite strip"
you are basing your conslusion on:
http://www.copperas.com/astro/hemstrip.jpg

The approximate area of your Stone Mountain closeup is indicated.

Yes that is it.

You should also note that there are very few images sent back by
opportunity
of the soil in which the spherules were not present, yet there are large
areas that appear to be hematite-poor.

Not really, outside the airbag bouncemarks:
http://www.copperas.com/astro/hematite.jpg

Take a closer look at the image with the TES analysis archs. Large areas
covered by the archs are hematite-poor:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...hem_strip1.jpg

As I've said before, I think is it
too early to say that the spherules are composed of hematite. Looking
at
data brought back from Apollo 14, similar granular spherules were found
at
that site that turned out to be composed largely of plagioclase. I
think
I
will wait for more data before reaching a firm conclusion regarding the
spherules.

Similar? They were over ten times smaller than these and were made of dark
glass!

Not at the Apllo 14 site. The were much more coarse-grained, and were
larger than ones found elsewhe

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...=en&ie= UTF-8

The spherules found at the Apollo14 site, and at Opportunity are close to
the same size (no larger than a few milimeters). The spherules at the
Opportunity site are smaller than you must think they are. Note that rocks
at the Apollo 14 site were similar to the bulk composition that appears to
be seen at the Opportunity site: That is there is lots of olivine, which
indicates that there is a basaltic source rock somewhere in the vicinity.
The plagioclase at the Apollo 14 site no doubt originated from the basaltic
rocks in which the craters in the region were formed.

Well, we can all speculate all we want to, but my experience with
speculation is this: Don't assume, that way you won't make a fool out
of
you and me! :-))

But is speculation, particularly based on current data, equivalent to
assumption?

Joe


As long as you make clear that you are speculating or making asumptions, you
are probably going to be fine. It is when you make lots of assumptions and
then make definite conclusions based on them that you and I get in trouble.
Am I wrong?

"Greg Crinklaw" wrote in message
...
George wrote:
But we see the same phenomenon in landslides in desert regions on the
earth.
There is evidence that some large landslides will behave as a fluid due
to
the creation of a layer of compressed air between the landslide material
and
the ground upon which it is sliding. Such a layer acts like a lubricant
that reduces friction, and will allow the slide to behave as a fluid. In
the
case of Mars, the air would consist of the CO2 atmosphere. Now, I am
not
saying that water doesn't exist on Mars. Obviously it does, at least at
the
poles. And of course, we have all seen some evidence that there may be
ground water, and/or frozen water in the subsurface. What I am saying
is
that there are other explanations for the fluid appearance of these
landslides on Mars.

I'm not arguing with you, I'd just like to see what you thought of this:
http://barsoom.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/13/

It seems like this evidence has been overlooked, but I fid it rather
comepelling. Comments?

I don't think this has been overlooked at all. I've got a copy of this
image, and have looked very closely at it a number of times. And I'm not
making the case that water has never flowed on the surface of Mars. I just
don't see evidence that it has at the locations of the current rovers. I do
think that it would be very difficult to land a spacecraft in the location
of your link. Having said that, I understand that NASA is studying the
possibility of sending a flying craft, possibly some sort of balloon to Mars
to study the surface and atmosphere at lower altitudes over larger areas.
Perhaps if they make this a reality, these more difficult to access areas
will be investigated.

"Thomas Lee Elifritz" wrote in message
...
February 15, 2004

George wrote:

If...they...are...ancient...I ...would...not...expect...some..to
be...pristine.


Why? Very little aside from wind is occuring that can alter anything
on
the surface. It certainly doesn't rain. And any frost action is
extremely
limited in scope and intensity. The surface of most of the planet has
been
left unaltered, except for wind effects and the occasional meteor
impact,
for perhaps billions of years. The landscapes you are seeing at both
sites
are very, very old.

That is absurd. If that were the case, the cratering would be much more
uniform
planet wide. There is wide scale evidence of surface subsidence via ice
removal
and water outflow almost everywhere on the planet. That almost certainly
has
modified the surface.

The fact remains that both the Spirit and Opportunity rover sites are very
old, and have changed very little.

You are an idiot, crackpot. Give it up.

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


You post a driveling site like this, and call me a "crackpot"? HA!

I especially like this one:

"Compost and Hydroponics are the key to Life. Face it, after we kill off all
the trees, plants and animals here on the Planet Earth, there is little
else."

Except that you seem to forget that at least 90% of all life on the planet
lives in the oceans, not on land. I'd like to see you try to feed compost
to an anemone or a sponge. We don't even have names or proper descriptions
for half of the species on the planet. Please note that life existed on
this planet for two billion years in the sea, at a time when compost as we
know it didn't even exist.

"Thomas Lee Elifritz" skrev i en meddelelse
...

You are an idiot, crackpot. Give it up.

George, this guy uses to break any record on news-abuse - don't listen

Carsten

" George" wrote
Take a closer look at the image with the TES analysis archs. Large areas
covered by the archs are hematite-poor:


http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...hem_strip1.jpg

The beam width is very narrow, so it doesn't cover a large area. To say that
large areas are hematite poor is inconsistent with their other hematite map.
Also note that the strip such as it is registers positive right about where
it goes under Stone Mountain.

Similar? They were over ten times smaller than these and were made of
dark
glass!

Not at the Apllo 14 site. The were much more coarse-grained, and were
larger than ones found elsewhe


http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...=en&ie= UTF-8

That formatting is hard to follow. This is what I have re Apollo 14
spherules:

"These 155 lunar spherules ranged in size from less than 100 microns to more
than 250 microns, and came from lunar soil picked up in 1971 by the Apollo
14 mission crew near Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains), the dark crater that
dominates the moon's face. Statistical and chemical analyses showed that the
spherules studied came from approximately 146 different craters."

The spherules found at the Apollo14 site, and at Opportunity are close to
the same size (no larger than a few milimeters).

The Meridiani spherules are on the order of 3 mm (3000 microns). That is,
over ten times bigger than the Apollo 14 sample.

The spherules at the
Opportunity site are smaller than you must think they are.

See above.

Joe

February 15, 2004

George wrote:

As long as you make clear that you are speculating or making asumptions, you
are probably going to be fine. It is when you make lots of assumptions and
then make definite conclusions based on them that you and I get in trouble.
Am I wrong?

Yes. But only you are in trouble. Conclusions are called falsifiable hypotheses, crackpot. You test them, with experiments, and further evidence,
to produce more conclusion and hypotheses. It's called the scientific method. However, being the crackpot that you are, you ridicule, then
dismiss, and and remain skeptical, without offering any evidence, except that you still remain a crackpot.

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

go look at the mushrooms

"Carsten Troelsgaard" wrote in message
k...

"Thomas Lee Elifritz" skrev i en meddelelse
...

You are an idiot, crackpot. Give it up.

George, this guy uses to break any record on news-abuse - don't listen

Carsten


I've already come to the conclusion that he is an elfbitch. He's the only
dork I know who is trying to save the planet while living on another one.

"Joe Knapp" wrote in message
.com...

" George" wrote
Take a closer look at the image with the TES analysis archs. Large
areas
covered by the archs are hematite-poor:



http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...hem_strip1.jpg

The beam width is very narrow, so it doesn't cover a large area.

You are correct, it doesn't. However, because it made an arch across the
area in question, I think it is safe to say that the analysis it made is
representative of the area as a whole.

To say that
large areas are hematite poor is inconsistent with their other hematite
map.
Also note that the strip such as it is registers positive right about
where
it goes under Stone Mountain.

No, what it registers is slightly (green) more than none (blue), and that is
below the rock, not on the rock.


Similar? They were over ten times smaller than these and were made of
dark
glass!

Not at the Apllo 14 site. The were much more coarse-grained, and were
larger than ones found elsewhe



http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...=en&ie= UTF-8

That formatting is hard to follow. This is what I have re Apollo 14
spherules:

"These 155 lunar spherules ranged in size from less than 100 microns to
more
than 250 microns, and came from lunar soil picked up in 1971 by the Apollo
14 mission crew near Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains), the dark crater that
dominates the moon's face. Statistical and chemical analyses showed that
the
spherules studied came from approximately 146 different craters."

The spherules found at the Apollo14 site, and at Opportunity are close
to
the same size (no larger than a few milimeters).

The Meridiani spherules are on the order of 3 mm (3000 microns). That is,
over ten times bigger than the Apollo 14 sample.

Ok, you convinced me on the size issue.. I went back and re-read the
article, and was mistaken about what they said the size was. According to
the article, and another one

http://tinyurl.com/2uf7m

they ranged between 40-500 µm, with 200 µm being common. Also, in relation
to the general makeup of the site, the spectrum of the landing site
indicates, in order of abundance, olivine, Fe2+ (silicate phase), Fe3+
(phases), and finally a very small magnetic mineral phase (probably
magnetite). The fact that the most abundant iron phase is a silicate phase
is interesting for several reasons. If I am reading it right, the fact that
the spectrometer can discern between olivine and other iron-bearing minerals
tells me that you can exlude that as one of the iron-bearing Fe2+ silicates.
Fe2+ silicate possibilities include andradite, and various pyroxenes
(ferrosilite?) and amphiboles, and others. Interestingly, Actinolite and
the amphiboles require water to form. An interesting aside to that is that
no amphiboles were ever found in samples brought back from the moon.