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Thoughts on the Mars "Blueberries"



 
 
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Old May 3rd 05, 02:55 PM
David Stinson
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Default Thoughts on the Mars "Blueberries"

How the Mars "blueberries" formed:

The Martian surface was wet. Lots of muddy flats.
Impacts on the flats. Mud, "atomized" and sprayed high
in the cold, thin atmosphere, forms "hail stones"
and rains back down as frozen "mud hail."
Over millennia, thin atmosphere desiccates the "hailstones,"
leaving the freeze-dried "blueberries."
One man's opinion.
Kindly,
David S.

Jeffrey Cornish wrote:
As metorite impacts are random events, and the debris from such impacts
would likely be randomly sized, please explain the uniform size and
distribution of the blueberries.

You've make a very interesting hypothesis (don't try to hide behind

opinion,
you've given a mechanism for it occuring)

What would disprove your hypothesis?


Uniform distribution:
We cannot really say this; the rovers have covered
a vanishingly small fraction of the surface.
Even if we do see blueberries over a wide area-
the Martian atmosphere is not as dynamic as the Earth's and
would have a similar effect on wet, fine-grained matter
over a larger area.
Given the consistent texture of the fine-grained component
of impact ejecta on the Martian surface,
consistent upper atmosphere dynamics over a large part of the planet
and also given a surface covered either with a shallow brine sea
or with saturated mud flats (the current model), the ejecta
from large impacts (those capable of injecting matter into the
upper atmosphere) would behave in a consistent manner.

The blueberries we see are uniform in size for several reasons:
The wet, pulverized particles ejected into the upper atmosphere would
be "sorted" (larger particles falling out at lower altitudes), sending
very fine-grain and water saturated material into the cold, windy
Martian "stratosphere." As with Earthly hailstones, the energy of
the fine-grain mud's motion, transferred into rotation as the particles
froze and accumulated, acquire a rounded shape as their "spin"
precludes further accumulation, the size of the spheres being
dependent on many factors but mostly on these atmospheric effects,
which we already know to be more uniform over a larger area than in
an Earthly "thunderstorm." Earth storms generate hailstones
of uniform size in this manner,
their sphericial size dependent on the storm's dynamics over
the area it covers. Since Martian atmospheric dynamics are
still energetic but simpler, the similar-sized "mud hail" result
would cover a much wider area with a consistent hailstone size.
Lower gravity, lower atmospheric pressure, etc.- all contribute
to a more uniform process over a larger area.

And it's still just "one man's opinion;"
I'm not smart enough to deal in hypothesis ;-).
What would disprove it?
Several things could-
the first being general disuniformity in
the internal structures or large-particle inclusions
( in the few we've seen "ground open,"
the structure has been fine and uniform, such as you would expect
from the process I've posited).
A closer study of the fine grain that supported slow accumulation
as in the current "concretion" hypothesis would disprove it.
Frankly, I think the lack of large inclusions stands against
the "concretion" answer, along with other questions.
I'm sure there are others- I guess we'll have to wait
until someone actually has some blueberries to study.
Don't hold your breath ;-).

Kindly,
David S.

 




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