Causes of Scaled Patterns on Mars - Page 2

Dana; I don't believe the items you refer to are fossils.
If " they are real" and you consider the probable environment ,there are probably a number of explanations, one of which simple,light reflection etc. could explain the features. What say Hort?

You don't mention the "swirly' finger print texture on the dune? surfaces. Any ideas about this?

A couple additional images. The same area as above at #20, with less contrast. Still high in contrast for a scenic image, but better ice small feature detail is seen here, and the actual contrast and tonal values of the items referenced is better seen in this view.A hard to find item.
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As these objects are not all the same, but are in a range of altered similar appearances in various other spots around the same large JP2 image area, I believe the basic question as to whether this is a geological or mineral formation can still be seen as open and unanswered. I would accept a single example as more likely to be an unexplained artifact of intelligent manufacture if I saw just this one item. As the others are varied states of wear, varied size, and differing context/physical content, I would estimate a process of an item type which is manipulated and alterable in effective display contextual to the scene as a integrated item type. The statement would be,' this is a type of object which is present throughout the scene in varied physical terms. It is therefore a proper element in the scene, and may be a common natural item type despite the manufactured appearance, and despite the in-congruence of the placement and complex symmetric assembly.' As this is a very shallow view as yet, we can wonder about the validation of the image content basically, and question the similarity to the MER spheroids in the complex 'stems' and chirality type displays along the stems issuing from some of the axial stems in both this large type spheroidal shape and the MER rover 'blueberry' spheroids.
This item matches the layered mounds generally, and they appear to be a ice suspended structure of concentric rings or hemispheric stacked spheroidal growths often covered by ices, or even made within the ices, in this JP2. Finding an item this ordered to be a natural process of inorganic mineral assembly will be a challenge to most all, I believe.

The second image is a cropped display of the HiRISE browse image from PSP_009943_2650.
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The ice cap scarp face shows a history of weathering and activity. I have marked a series of very old, even ghosted, or worn, craters which appear at differing layers within the Lower Unit of the Northern Polar Cap. The tremendous age of the craters, and the continuous regular circular edges show a pattern of ancient exposure(no ice of depth), at 2+ levels in the Lower Unit upon crater formation, and a stable subsequent stacking of the upper unit, with probable burial of the now exposed craters saving a clean edge for our current viewing. No real cratering of recent origin is seen at the collection of scarp face layers, and any produced might well be hidden by the ice cover, or healed rapidly by current processes. These are a history of dry and exposed surface at the high latitudes of the current ice cap. As the dunes are close in latitude to these formerly exposed craters making dry land events, can we assume that the climate of the dunes would be also a drier or less polar rotational oriented position? As the dunes are near gypsum deposits seen in some of the local dunes, can the items seen here be considered as massive crystalline structures from a warmer climate possibly? Can the large structures of bright material be fairly recent instead, with such large deposits forming in recent times?
Can crystalline structures form this way in deep ices as appears to be underway?
Are these a product immersion in a shallow sea of brines not frozen, but of possibly either ancient or recent liquid water?
Was this a hot environment when these large structures were formed?

I can see what appears to be wind or current influence in some of the other areas of the bright material in this JP2. Can the bitterly cold wind and ice build these structures, as in rime ice plaguing in permafrost layering?
The bright concentric stacked or encased semi-spheroids appear to be very well organized as growths across the main image. Can the less well regulated items be related to this 'stem/geared collar/spheroid' shaped item?

Can we imagine a class of scaled growths with such a routine widely varied size range as these related to the small MER 'berry' spheroids?

Are these geological and inorganic in appearances?

A couple additional questions to muddle the readers who don't appreciate the beauty of questions in contextual envelopment, as in the photos of a newly seen planet with an unknown history.
Are the dunes and ripples healing the cratering by elaborate and active chirality structuring attempts of macro-molecular superstructures?
Are the dunes and the bright materials a simple formation based upon the basic forces of wind, gravity, and the simplest of chemistry qualities?
Do Mars dunes have formation sequences over geologic time? I am also asking if the bright materials are a product of the dunes presence?

The MER rover images of this week shows item types which are macroscopic similar shapes to the HiRISE items in the dunes.
This is the last image in the sequence for sol 1755.
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At the bottom centered area is this spheroid with a stem running the axis and extended out one end.
The spheroid is resting on a larger bright rock(pebble).
The size has been enlarged to 2X for the cropped image, with the magnified image inset being a 2X enlargement as well, for a combined enlargement of 4X at the largest view.
The rulers show a size of 86x58 which with the 2X enlargement adjustment figures a size of 43x28 pixels actual size for the spheroid and stem as a single unit.
The size would be therefore 43/1000" x 28/1000" .
The image as can be seen, is increased in contrast to set the dark spheroid apart from the brighter rock.

Can we assume the smaller spheroid here is related in material or cause of the similar spheroids of tens of feet in diameter at the polar dunes some distance from the Meridiani rover Opportunity MI image?

Can items so similar be dissimilar in formation causes?
Perhaps only a landing at each area will solve any of the questions.

An area just to the left of the section above. Sol1755, Opportunity rover of the MER program here. The items measured are about 8.5 pixels total in size on each side.
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Additional similar shaped items across Mars, at widely ranging scales of size.

Dana; I am afraid your imagination is taking control.
I will respond when you come back to reality.

Here is an image for your imagination-unfortunately this is too poor quality in sharpness for good work together, but this is a morphology of the dune face exposure in tonal conversion.
Is this simply convection cell degradement, or, is this an actual dune assembly in active terms?
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Big hurry today- I'll return with retails. These detailed items are related to the dune morphology- but are they active or 'fossil' remnants?

Brother Dana,

Shapes in different scales are more a product of the scale. A mushroom on my steak is not the same as a mushroom cloud. A hurricane in the Atlantic looks a lot like a galaxy.

It is all relative brother. At least that is what Albert said.

Fred

Actually on Earth the shapes we deal with are fairly limited and more a matter of a regime in which they are allowed to form and function.
On Mars the tides are changed and we have a set of parameters completely differing from our perceptions here. Once we spend time on Mars we will learn to adapt as best we can- but it will always be deadly and disparaging of human life on Earth. We have never successfully achieved the task as yet in similar terms, but the human technique of leveraging materials will aid us considerably.
In the photo I had to think about the possible sorting pattern which can dominate a slope of particulates. The chemistry was still too unknown to make a final finish line dash in my mind, so I thought to ask opinions about the herringbone pattern at the surface with the viewable top of the steep slope showing the vertical fracture/jointing, the commonly angled sub-surface slopes along the herringbone pattern changes, the tonal margin differences in the lines connecting the herringbone pattern domain limits for each pattern, and the central core rod-like shaped items which pass through the lengthwise center of the herringbone domains.
I had a better image prepared for you but lost it just before the image above was posted. Somehow I'll find a method of displaying the finer details of that image above at #27.
Once you have studied the details you will be concerned with the overall explanation as I was.
Of particular interest to me is the circular structures which are not tied to the solid opaque items, but are related to large objects on the dunes, and tied to the transparent material which NASA is describing as CO2 ice. I am finding them on the dune upper surface at times with disk shapes at the center. As the disks are too large to be carried there, too circular to be rock slabs, and are at the low central orientation of the dune ripple sections, I have to assume that all the viewed details are both important and applicable to the structure I can see.
If I know the structure displays characteristics which could be understood as a pattern producing process at some other scale, I would be foolish to think the pattern did not therefore match as a result of size differences alone. Viewing in the image at #27 the rippled surface tells me that great elaboration of structure has occurred below the surface as well. When I search for the dune face details and find them, I can be confident that the organized pattern has a scale of the size equal to or greater than each dune. One of the interesting details of geology is that the materials can achieve a great variation in scaled pattern as a result of the dry and crystalline state of the solids involved. We see on Mars, Venus, the Moon , and many other small Solar System bodies, planet-wide fracture/fault offsets and ridge or graben linear formations. These actually are not much different than the micro fractures which have weakened the same solids at vastly smaller scales. We can see ice on many bodies which show the preferred angular patterns of crystalline ice crystals we know only by the viewable snowflake sized crystals we can appreciate here around us.
In viewing the Mars circular transparent structures I can see great organized detail of either an impact(unlikely), or a crystalline structural assembly in a favorable environment.
Many of the details in the herringbone dune structure appear as a chiral patterned display in great size and complex repetition. The idea of a well ordered geological structure is not unusual- it is actually rather common on Earth. It is on Earth, however resolved as a water liquid conditioned object, mangled by the solventing basis of our most pervasive influence, H2O.

These solid large linear column structures are real on Mars. The transparent circular structures are real items. The central physical objects at the centers of these items are too small to be identified as yet.
The superstructure of the dunes is very real.

The identification of the dunes as active or simply organized and influenced by CO2 gas and ice is now my quest in this image and other related images of the dunes.
I assume neither one of you can explain any of the details viewable in the image at #27, nor the larger source JP2 image.

I need to study the image for a better resolution in converting the tones and the colors.
It is fortunate that the rather deep transparent material is not opaque or even translucent in these images at this near polar area. The ice is completely covering much of the detail we are looking at This is a IR view of the materials.

From the Opportunity images of last week, on sol1751, a few closeups of the berry(spheroid) shapes. This was taken from the lower left corner photo in the current array of images for that day.
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A spheroid with a surface growth of concentric and radial extensions, growing on the spheroid in place well after formation of the berry/spheroid. Most all readers will remember many growths on spheroids of varied types. While this is only a general pattern match to the gypsum dunes in the polar north of Mars, it is a very close match at widely varied scale.
The image shows both a early set of items and traits, and current items appearing to have possibly been developing in more recent timing. Located at the far left center of the main MER rover MI image.
This is displayed as 2X in slightly altered terms for better viewing of the shaded crystal side in the foreground.
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A 2X view of the entire left side of the source MER image. A few items are easier to see in this image, To see the original and the two here gives an understanding of the degree of difficulty in seeing the important details in all the MER rover MI's. Details are nearly always in shade, too bright, or too small for good viewing.
The virtual carpet of short and long linear growths is visible in the enlarged images, The growths issuing from the spheroids and on them shows the active processes during formation and since.
These are a very small scale replay of the basic features in the polar dune face debris slopes, and the bright deposits.
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It will take careful identification of both site items to confirm similar content and processes, but I can see a great similarity in basics.