Geological explanation?

Geological explanation?

I know this has probably been covered, but how were these formed, from the geological perspective?

Posted on NASA/JPL sol 159, but time stamped sol 139. These stalked “mushrooms” are about the largest I’ve seen. Pretty thick stalks, too

NOTE: Ignore the big chunk of hematite rich material... It doesn’t fit the concretion hypothesis for the "berries", so it's nothing...

Now, look at the nice round "berries", nice and round, you are getting sleepy, sleepy, - nice round "berry" concretions, that’s all you see - - nice round "berry" concretions - - that’s all you see...

Now, wakeup!

Concretions are formed by little understood processes. On Earth maybe 90% or more are nucleated or mediated by life. Since this is Mars they can’t possibly be nucleated or mediated by life. Ignore the little holes they have, internal structure and the other things that don't fit with the concreation hypothesis...

The “stems”, oh those are purely aeolian features {wink, wink}. Sand whips up in one direction and bounces off of the hard “berry” thereby protecting the “stem” from erosion – never mind that the "stem" should taper - the "stems" must be just as soft as matrix rock... They are nothing...

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

Henry,

As long as you use “mushrooms” as a pet name for the "berries", we are ok. These things are eroding out of the rock - they are millions of years old - maybe BILLIONS. Mushrooms almost NEVER become fossils.

A billion years is a long long - unimaginably long time...

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

Fossils, I can't get a grip on how the curved stalks were formed in the geological argument. Did the wind direction change ove time, or what?

There seems to be an "illusion" that they are drooping under gravity. The spherules at this point have eceeded my wildest expectations of how strange real things can be. For a while I was absolutely convinced that they were fossils. Now I am no longer convinced, because they are SO strange. IT is clear that there are mechanisms at work which ar every very odd and which I do not understand and can't even make a guess as to what is really hapening. So, I have moved them into the realm of "completely unexplained." Other than, maybe, they are fossils, but that is sort of cheating. A fossil could exhibit any number of bizzare featurers, so that is a cop out. And, the stalks do not appear to be made of the same material as the spherules. That is not consistent with the stalks and the spheruls being a single fossilized structure. And, if we rule out fossilization, then I do not have any SOLID explanation for what we see. But neither does NASA or JPL or anyone else who has made a statement I have heard about. Lots of theories, but none of them hold up under scrutiny. We need to bring one back to earth to study it.

R_Luwis,

Well, the fossilization process occurs in different ways and amounts with different materials and situations. Soft tissue rots away or is eaten, leaving hard stuff (like chitin) and shells. We do not know the chemistry - composition - of the original material so it’s all a guess at this point as to what exactly the fossilization process could be for the "berries" and "stems".

Likely, the "berries" started out as a harder permeable shell of a single celled organism that was infiltrated with mineral rich ground water. The minerals were triggered (or catalyzed) into precipitatetion when crossing into the shell cavity. It's also possible that the shell or shell cavity contained a chemical reactant that the “berry” organism produced to convent and digest a food/energy source.

Since we see the stems in different configurations (radial spread, curved, or missing), the stems are possibly thin food gathering “tentacles” or reticulopodia that are spread out in a net like arraignment out from the aperture when alive and usually collapses into a linear mass. The mass is preserved but only as a slight hardening of the matrix rock. But there are certainly aeolian processes that also create a type of “stem”. The wind sandblast is the primary erosion process so we expect to see the little wind yardaings.

Here is a guess to help visualize:

Here are some stems. I have not looked closely at any of the resent photos. The big stem and shown in the lower right has thin sectioning as pointed to by the arrows. It also has little holes where it looks like cytoplasm flowed down into the dividing reticulopodia tubes…

I have a “Mars madness”, I know… Who has a good geological explanation?

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

That is: The “berry” “stem” socket is the photo clip on the lower right. The big “stem” and socket (the “stem” goes vertically down then crumples around like shown in figure F) has sectioning where it attached to a “berry” as pointed to by the arrows. It also has little holes where it looks like cytoplasm flowed down into the dividing reticulopodia tubes…

Amazing, astounding, unbelievable…

Oh, by the way, those are not the full res photos of the "stems" and "stem" socket. They were saved at low res for posting... I highly recommend looking at the origionals to get a good look see.

Where did I find that stem socket? I need to look that up.

Fossils:

Here is another "stem socket". Not the one you wanted, so please pardon the interruption if I interfered...

Henry,

not an interruption or interference - you started the thread. Fossils discussions - geology or biology - it depends on what aspect of the objects that we are discussing.

The photo you posed is from inside endurance. Fossil development in sediments proceeds differently in different sediment conditions and locations. So a few meters up or down, right or left may have different conditions that create better or poor fossils. Some places will have the preserved "stems" other places will not. Some places will have aeolian "stems" and features others will not.

In this location there are aeolian features - aeolian "stems" in the wind shadows. But we do not see the same long "stems" like in other locations. Not one up close...

The "berry" socket that you post is just that - a "berry" socket without a "stem". The "berry" sockets in many cases are just the remnants of the surrounding rock where the "berry" eroded from. This looks to be the case here.

Compressed grains and/or a reaction area may be found around concretions as I have stated here in reply 20. Some people point to the bits of rock surrounding the concretions as the reaction area, but these bits of surrounding rock are very small for a reaction area, and there is no consistency. The surrounding bits of rock might be jsut surrounding bits of rock, or cause by a surrounding “stem”. Remember that the “stems” do not have any appreciable component of hematite but are just a slight hardening of the rock. The “stems” look to have a wide range of morphologies.

It would be nice to have a MI’s of the various “stems” – but JPL dismisses the “stems” as aeolian features and not worth the time... Time will tell...

Henry, what you need to look for is a “stem” without a berry – one that is sticking out of the rock – one that is clearly a “stem” with a “berry” attachment point. We can look at the attachment point for clues as to its nature.

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

I'll repeat a question from my post under "Ancient Dunes in Endurance". Going through this exercise may clear-up somethings...maybe not. "When did the berries appear?" are they syndeposition, postdeposition, created by a diagenitic process, are they in-situ, or washed in from an upland source, have they been eroded from a previous unit and redistributed in the formations Opportunity now sees, has volcanism played a role in the distribution of these things. If they are syndeposition (and bio forms) how does one explain their appearence in what everyone is calling an evaporite sequence AND in a probable aeolian structure (sand dune) seen in the side of Endurance (sol 166). Two extremes as far as ecosystems go and we see berries in both. That's one persistent bioform if it's in-situ. Not bloody likely.....

ArizonaSt- you seem to be assuming that it has to be all one or the other.. there could well be both in-situ formations and a postdeposition of berries - especially evident near eroding outcrops. i see evidence of both- and don't think the two possibilities are mutually exclusive -nor can be used to discount a bio based theory.

scidude - sure, nothing can be ruled out. If not in-situ, or washed in, we should see some evidence of lag deposit, or layers of berries conforming to a specific strata, depositional horizon, which I haven't seen yet. Consider that mars is in a dry period now, if water settles in tomorrow presumably a lag would form, which would show up nicely in a future cross section. My opinion....in-situ, post depo., not ruling out bio.

ArizonaSt - "...what everyone is calling an evaporate sequence"

MAYBE it is an evaporate sequence! Nothing more than a conjecture that meets some of the current models! Three measurements of the sort-of jumbled rocks at Eagle is not much to base this statement on. We have not heard much about the Endurance measurements.

At the last "news" briefing (7/16) the researcher discussing the APXS chlorine results stated "If this is an evaporative sequence at all then it is puzzling as to why chlorine is increasing dramatically as measurements are done at lower (older) strata."

With the observation that something has flowed on the surface for short distances - like a dirty water brine from snow or heavy frosts, then it is possible that the measurements are skewed by subsequent concentration.

Most likely – we are looking at a shore area of the northern ocean where a mix of fine sediments, sand, evaporates, and dunes can be found covering the area periodically – it is not a simple dry lake bed.

As evidenced in Eagle crater, there are strata with many many more “berries” than other strata – a vein of them if you will. Additionally, small “berries” are found right next to large “berries” – quite a puzzle.

At first I would agree that it’s possible that we are seeing some kind of redeposit of “berries” in sediments after some earlier creation. Problem is, they can not be distributed like this, year after year in sediments over 250,000sq/km and just be some mixed up sequence. Lets not forget the “berry” structure…

How did this “berry” mineralize or concrete?

How did these “berries” mineralize or concrete?

How did this “berry” mineralize or concrete?

What the heck is this?

Are the odd bits of hematite nothing?

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

Fossils,

The reason "hardly anyone notices" is because most people don't accept that the evidence is conclusive. In fact, most people don't consider that this is evidence of life at all. I'm neutral.

Thanks, Fossils.

I’ve not found any more stems without berries…

Posted today (sol 174) on NASA/JPL is a small berry, with a diameter of about 2.6 mm (as opposed to the larger 5.2 mm ones we have seen). It appears to be just beginning to send out roots.

It is pretty hard to be sure. There are four images: maybe Horton could stack them for higher resolution.

About 1/3 down from the top, just right of center. Opportunity microscopic imager.

GregP, "hardly anyone notices" because 99% of the world’s population could care less about the photographs from another planet - until someone or some organization tells them what to think.

The other .999% is scared of being "wrong" in stating what they think – it’s safer to stay within the herd and be mundane.

The last .001% could care less about what others think and are willing to state the obvious even though the obvious might be proven wrong – proving something wrong only takes a single negating line of evidence. Stating a hypothesis and having conviction that you are right is good science – provided of course that what you claim is supported by evidence and unbiased analysis. If the hypothesis is proven wrong, it is also good science that a test was performed or evidence was found that proves the hypothesis wrong.

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

Henry - "It appears to be just beginning to send out roots."

Roots? Rocks don't roots, look around your yard. Did you miss the photos of "berries" that were RATed? The things are hard balls of ROCK.

What you sense is past life - MILLIONS of years old. It's funny that so many do not know life when they see it.

GregP,

what kind of photographic evidence from MER would persuade you that what you are looking at was made by life? A round ball of something encased in sediment for millions of years? A mat of stuff encased in sediment for millions of years? A bumpy indistinct odd looking pebble? For me none of these do it.

In fact it is nearly impossible for MER to provide the smallest evidence of past life on Mars without one thing – a complicated structure that is only created by life. The instruments that MER has are so crude that MER compositional analysis, stratigraphy, etc will only support or negate the past life hypothesis - it will not even come close to providing a simple “proof”. We need those complicated structures to be photographed – or we will be waiting 5 to 10 YEARS before another rover lands on Mars.

Now, what kind of complicated structures have we found? Clear ones – not fuzzy 500% zoomed or blurry junk. There are a few micro-imager photographs that do it. But we need confirming evidence. One complicated object created by life is not enough – it’s good – but we need to see two, or three of these. Repeated samples of the same thing – and we have it. Not a “proof” for all eyes, but good “proof” none-the-less.

What is this?

And what is this?

And this?

Knock the fossils hypothesis down, tell me that there is a plausible geological process that creates these things on the surface of Mars and then encases them for millions of years in sediment for us to see.

The universe has changed, hardly anyone notices, Earth is not alone, Mars had life.

Fossils, Where did you find this?