spores?

life would be growing slow on mars. these look like spores wind blown and you can see once they reach a suitable location (small crater) the grown then release some more spores. look at the way the wind blown trail leads. and the way the spread is. and they seem to eminate from a crater (the wind cant dislodge the spore or moisture at the bottom of the crater)

ummm... I think this was posted in the wrong forum...

ESA's image release of the same area shows the "spores" to be greenish.

Interesting theory you have.

Sure doesn't look just like "dark sand", does it?

I agree with Daniel. This is the wrong forum for this subject.

/R

marsman

Here's an alternate speculation for the origin of the darker colorations. I see near the edges of some of the darker regions dark lines that look like the tracks of dust devils. It appears as if the dust devils originate in craters and then move from the craters across the plain. We have seen that the soil beneath the martian duricrust is much darker than the surface soil. Perhaps, where the dust devils are most common the surface has attained a darker coloration due to the darker soils being uncovered and then settling across the surface as a thin dark dust layer.

Gray, sounds feasable. what would cause the dust devils to form, above the craters? Is something "leaking" out the crater/deppressions? Warm air? moist air?

I really don't know. I was just basing the idea on the fact that the trails seem to begin in the craters. I know next to nothing about atmospherics. The very simplistic idea I had was that the craters generated a vortex as the wind blew across them. I'm sure it's far more complex than that.

wrong forum...maybe.
and if the craters themselves helped in creation of the dust devils...why are they selective(not evenly destributed).
they have a starting point then fanning out in windward direction.
and if the craters do contain water or moisture it would pertain to this forum.
or help elude to the water or life debate.

I think Daniel meant that this topic should be posted either on the Mars open board, or the mars Biology board.

I think.

mann stated in a post on a different thread that depressions can sometimes act a parabolic reflectors. Perhaps craters that have just the right shape heat up the air inside the crater to the point where it generates the dust devil.
This is all wild speculation on my part....

Hi Moxy,
Thats exactly what I meant... speculation about biology is supposed to be the domain of the other two boards - this is supposed to be the refuge from it...

The tracks definitely could be dust devils tracks... its interesting that all the dark areas lead back to craters. In fact, almost every crater has a few small streaks leading away. I guess the craters are uncovering deeper material and then the wind/dust devils are spreading it away from the craters.

So along the same lines as the dark tracks, any thoughts on geological causes or correlates of:

?

banyan tree "rocks".

Just a respectful thought for those repeating
"wrong forum" about this thread...

What all these sub-forums (Mars geo or bio or
general) are doing is interpreting
photographic imagery (with some very
occasional additional spectral data).
Suppose we were doing the same thing on Earth
-- where even some of the geologists here
might agree that biology may indeed exist --
how separable would the bio and geo
explanations of satellite photos be?

Many photographic features would have been
formed from a combination of bio and geo
activity; insisting on a strictly exclusive
geo or bio explanation of a given set of
photgraphic features would often give a
necessarily false result.

To the original post. The veiw is from space and is most likely a geological feature. If something was living, it would not be isolated to a few events, but would bee seen over and over on Mars.

From space, even the abundant vegitation on earth does not always show up on land as green. You have to be talking about HUGE amounts of spores that would be recent and not covered by blowing sand. And since there is no liquid solvents, there is nothing much living recently. Again , you do not see this repetition of mars features as would happen if life were present and doing this.

karl:

1) "since there is no liquid solvents"
That is an assertion. Is there any evidence
to support that assertion?? Of course other
than the simplistic notion that most of the
solvents that we have in our kitchens would
either evaporate or freeze (most of the time)
on Mars.

2) "you do not see this repetition of mars features"
The poster posted one photo. That is not
evidence that there is not significant
repetition of these features -- in fact I
think there is.

thats why i put a question mark at the end of spores.
since mars plantlife would be completely unknown. i was trying to visualize in what is known.
since the mars climate is harsh i would assume that there would be no uniform blanket of life.
as there is not a uniform spread of moisture over the surface of mars.
each life form would establish a niche and go from there spreading slowly. most likely wind born untill i lands at a prime location for it to grow(bottom of craters where water is likely)

The photo shows wind patterned from the upper right to the lower left, precisely perpendicular to the dark trails. The wind cannot be causing this in the same time frame as the light streaks from the topmost craters in the photo. I have read that much of Mars has stable wind direction patterns during the entire martian yearly cycle(2years on Earth). To contradict that, I have noticed areas that seem to have two patterns of dunes when studying MOC and other photos. I just make the comment as a lead in to the suggestion that these can be two patterns even if they are wind or desert devil byproducts. I lived in the deserts and not many desert devils will produce circular discolorations as they tend to undulate along the predominate wind path. They are small, whereas these are very large areas with a discoloration bigger than a large tornadoe would produce, even if it were to be reproduced in the same 'microclimate' lane repeatedly.
Perhaps two seasons and two wind patterns here.
The topography shows the erosional effects are parallel to the dark streaks. Either the dark streaks are produced by the production of the topography and by the same causes, or, the production of the gradient is adding to or restricting the display of or the causation of these darker areas. I have seen some desert devil photos which show this much discoloration, and if an enourmous number occur in a micro-climate zone it accumulates to resemble swatches of darkness.
If desert devils, then they travel during a limited period of time in a direction contradictory to the lighter streaks.
Erosional features produced approximately north-northwest/south-southeast, or reversed if fluid.
Dark streaks following that pattern almost without any tendency to the slightest variance.
Wind patterns approximately northeast/southwest, almost precisely perpendicular to the items we are studying.
Two periods of time for two effects?
Two periods during each year?
Two seperate causes for wind patterns at the top and the dark streaks all around adjacent region?
A possibility is that an event like volcanism produced a limited recent iron flow unaffected by water currently, with the remaining area affected by chemistry or oxidation during a long previous period.
Gravity is affecting this process if it is water or volcanism. It appears that the dark streaks are affected by a dispersal from the plains to the plateaus at the lower right- that would an be uphill gradient.
Whatever produces the darker chemistry is not affecting the neighboring region in the same way, and has not disturbed the lighter streaking.
I could be wrong about the lighter streaks as wind produced, however the topography shows a pattern in the top of the photo of erosion following the lighter streaks in that area of the photo only.

Both streak patterns are conditioned by the causes of the topography, and each area is not cross-affected, over a small area.

Tro...hereis a paper that attempts to address your image....

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2002/pdf/1109.pdf

off topic i know...sue me.

Reply 11. One geological hypothesis that has been suggested is that these may be star dunes.

[link]
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/deserts/dunes/

/R

marsman

They are animal trails. There are several photographs of living things stalking our rover. They appear to surface and travel underground through some sort of pathways or trails.

I know this is controversial, but I have photos of "things" which appear to have surfaced behind our rovers. I haven't posted these yet, because I'm honestly a little afraid of what I'm seeing. At first I thought it must just be my imagination, but as I've gathered more data, I realize, it's not.

I have no agenda for telling you this, other than to say, keep your minds open, as to what these dendritic patterns may indeed, really be.

I know one thing for certain; they are not "dust" devil trails. It is illogical for the duracrust we have observed on Mars to be disturbed in this manner. Also, keep in mind; gravity on Mars is four times less, making underground travel easier.