Any new spherule theories?

First of all, where is everyone? It has gotten awfully quiet in here.

That being said, I think it is time for a recap of what we know about the spherules, and any new theories.

One problem I see is there are a LOT of them. If they were fossils then there are probably more of them at Meridiani than the richest fossil areas on earth, which I find improbable. On the other hand, if they are concretions, where did all the iron come from? There are a LOT of spherules, and they contain a lot of iron. I know mars itself is rich in iron overall, but some mechanism must have transported a LOT of iron over a long period of time in order to form this much hematite.

I am not familiar with the mechanisms of transporting iron by water. As I understand it, for example the Utah Berries (Moqui Marbles) are formed by iron disolved in water nucleating and conreting into spherules in sandstone. Is iron soluble in water? I guess so, but I do not understand why if that is true my engine block does not melt due to the coolant circulating through it. Iron must be very very weakly soluble at best, so if the iron in the spherules came from water transport, there must have been a huge amount of water over a very long time, since there is a lot of hematite.

So, any thoughts? There hasn't been much going on anyway, haven't seen any new raw data in several days.

No need to transport iron, there is iron all over. It probably came from the weathering of volcanics.

Finely divided hematite is also all over Mars. All you need is to dissolve it and redeposit it to form concretions. (well that's slightly simplistic, but basically iron oxide is formed when minerals like olivine break down)

The fact that the iron has an oxidation state of 3 is interesting, but recent research show that if we simulate Martian conditions in a lab, we obtain superoxides, or O2- , which is an extremely aggressive oxidizing agent.

The red coloration on the surface of Mars is probably due to this effect. Notice what happens when we remove or disrupt the surface? There is a darker layer underneath.

link

I’d like to present some thoughts on the spherical formation. But first what can be sure about? A brief summary:-
1. A layered formation exists with an extent of >85000km^2 with a hematite-rich surface signature
2. Layering in on a small scale (cm)
3. the hematite seems to be distributed through a sulfate-altered basaltic-composition formation in the form of small 4. The distribution seems random, hence some balls touch, we see apparent linear groupings, all indicative of a random distribution
5. the formation is draped over an existing topography
6. recent results suggest there is a Cl/SO4 variation and less alteration with depth.
So here goes in brief. Layers are ash-falls from volcanic activity. Changes in Cl/S are a result of fractionation of the original magma. The ash-fall contains volatiles and gases which form acid. There is sufficient but limited, fluid to allow the alteration of the basaltic ash to sulfates etc now found. Oxidation occurs through effects of UV radiation (may also promote the alteration). Some Fe(III) is dissolved and then concretes around nuclei to form the spherules but there is insufficient fluid for the sperules to grow beyond a few mm.
Note, no lakes, margins, evaporites because the processes must be the same everywhere over the 85000km^2+ area and for every layer in the formation. And, there is very little chemical variation between basalts and their altered forms, hence little migration of trace elements.
This of course skips over a lot of different questions particularly on reaction rates and what sort of processes are going on in the original magma (why is the major fluid output late in the eruption?) but I hope it generates some thoughtful comment.

Indeed, Where is everybody?????

spherules, iron, water, ...........

There was something about desert varnish by cavebugs.....

Something about panspermia.......

Some thing about Martian Evolution.....

Alot of somethings about ground water....

The inner dynamo has cooled..No magnetic field..No volcanoes..Probably not anything...Used to have all that...What happened to this poor old planet anyway???

What about other concretions. Namely sulfur?

Methane and now more methane...
An ammonia hoax or was the hoax actually the hoax???

How about Martian Evolution? Say there was a catastrophic event over there. Had one here, killed all the dinosaurs 'cept the birds. And us, we survived too. Actually alot survived.

Mars. no magnetic field >> lots of radiation
Got bugs here that can take alot of rads...
So the tough guys survive but still get hammered except there is a also higher rate of mutation. Perhaps a greater chance of survival???

I don't know..meandering ramblings of a confused mind searching for answers.

Why don't we just go to Mars already?

new theories on the blueberries...
well if i was life on mars i would build myself a lot of protection from the outside enviroment...hmmmm....hide in the middle of a big ball....(maybe its a colony, the outside is dead).
its mars untill we go there we wont really know.

I think that we really won't get a good answer on how these things form until we go to end of where they are and see what really is different there. Unfortunately they didn't put enough gas in the rover to get that far...

I have to admit, bruced, that is a unique hypothesis. I can't by the ash deposition theory because of the type of cross bedding that we see in some of the outcrops. Evaporite minerals are much easier explained through deposition from evaporating brine. But I like the idea of adding sporadic acidic conditions through periods of ashfall though.

Could work, but ashfalls would tend to suggest a more acid ie andesitic volcano than we generally see on Mars.

Some cross bedding is aeolian, but not all.

Having said that, there are some andesitic volcanos on Mars. They are just smaller (small but powerful). They could have also had planet-wide consequences in the past.

Increased atmospheric dust during eruptions may have led to higher pressures and temperatures, leading to free water close to or on the surface, leading to the formation of concretions.

It's all interrelated whichever way you look at it.

One of the problems is the particle size in the haliferous deposits. It's too coarse for broad regional ash falls alone. (or is it?)

The overall model is still quite broad. If Meridani was a cake, we know the approximate ingredients, we know roughly how it's baked, but we are not quite sure how important each ingredient is, or the order in which they are added. Not yet, anyway.

I hope I haven't stretched the analogy too far

la formation des spherules et peut etre le volcanisme et l'impactisme,ils faudraient savoir exactement de quoi sont composé ses spherule,quelle sont les gaz enfermés dedans la spherule car ci la spherule a fondu "verre" elle contiend forcement des gaz a zero de la formation daté.

blito 3, has a very good theory, one that Nasa themselves are looking into, with the "horodyskia", string of beads.

One new thing, i just noticed is that many berries, are in a sheath. These sheath contain strings, or a series of berries, from a few, to many. Some ly in a straight line, some are curled. If this sheath would decompose, the berries would be visible as strings of beads.

Also, someone posted a link to a lab, that produced oids, very, very rapidly, using biology.

If these objects are being created rapidly, that would explain, the great numbers, ON The Surface.

Oh ya, a baby berry.

Is this how concreations form?

could this be happening, inside the sheaths?

Mitosis:

Maybe the organisms forming the spherules were (or are) converting Fe2+ to Fe3+ and thereby forming the hematite as a waste product.

(There are e.g. bacteria on earth using that reaction. Example:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=202013)

by the way...pretty new images:

another one:

Yes, where are the new theories?
Any responses on the article Horton helped me post?
http://www.lipfordm.com/wtsi/RPage/RPage.htm
Bob

A comment about strings or lines of beads and joined sperules. The attached image shows a random array of points on a 2D surface http://members.optusnet.com.au/~turoaski/mypic6.gif
Apparent lines and curves are a feature of such distributions as anyone who has done photo interpretation well knows. The eye/brain can fool us all into seeing what isn't there and the noisier the data, the more easy it is to be fooled.
Joined spherules are also a feature of a random distribution of nucleating / growing sperical objects. If this was a glass of champagne of course joined bubbles would form bigger bubbles. Physics and surface tension dictate that. But the sperules don't form bigger spherules (or very few) but instead we see the joined spherules. IMHO, this and the samll size of the sperules indicates that the process of growth was terminated soon after they began to form.

Fiardo was making a point about the composition of the berries. He suggests formation by impact or vulcanism. In the case of volcanism, melted glass should help to date the berries.

I think NASA have almost eliminated both of those options, Fiardo. The fact that these spherules are so widely dispersed (both in terms of area and by depth) through the sediments would seem to eliminate sporadic impacts.

It's difficult to form such perfect spheres by those mechanisms.

The current thinking is that they are concretions, formed by precipitation of iron from aqueous solution. That also explains the highly soluble salts that are also present at Meridiani.

Sample return will certainly enable dating to be performed on a lot of these features. Unfortunately, we may have to wait about 20 years for that.

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En ce qui concerne la vulcanisme et impactisme comme mécanismes pour le formation de spherules, je crois, Fiardo, que NASA ont presque éliminé toutes ces deux options. Le fait que ces spherules sont tellement largement distribués (par superficie et par profondeur) par les dépôts semblerait éliminer des impacts sporadiques.

A mon avis, Il est difficile d'obtenir le formation de telles sphères parfaites par ces derniers mécanismes.

Les idées actuelles sont qu'ils sont des concrétions, constitués par la précipitation du fer du soluté. Cela explique également le presence des sels fortement solubles, qui sont également présents chez Opportunity.

Le retour d'échantillon permettra certainement la datation de beaucoup de ces objets. Malheureusement, nous devrons attendre une vingtaine d'années pour ceci.

je pense ALDEBARAN que le cratère GUSEV 100 Km de diamètre et peut etre responsable de la formation des Bleuberry,il y a aussi d'autres cratères EAGLE,ENDURANCE,il y a beaucoup de cratère sur MERIDIANI PLANUM et la NASA ne peut absolument pas pour l'instant ecarté l'impactisme en ce qui concerne l'apparition des Bleuberry,n'oubliont pas que MERIDIANI PLANUM inclu dans ca structure beaucoup de materiel semblant FONDU en SURFACE.je pense aussi que l'ont ne peut pas ecarté l'apparition de plusieurs couche suspect de materiel fondu type MAGMA ce recouvrant.ont ne peut pas aussi ecarté la presence de l'eau dans l'ensemble?je me demande ce qui a bien pu reélement ce passé sur MERIDIANI PLANUM le materiel de roche fondu cristallisé déployé un peut partout,le magma,le volcanisme,les impacts,les cratères,les blueberry,les sel tout cela sont des indices qui m'intrigue concernant l'apparition des blueberry,l'eau doit etre impliqué!,les cratères d'impacts sont t'ils apparus dans L'EAU?,quand une grande météorit heute MARS,l'energie de l'impact fond une grande partie de la roche èclaboussante en une fraction de seconde des perles de verre ce forment et sont ejectées en meme temps dans l'atmosphere avant de s'abattre au sol en grande quantité sur tout un périmetre.ont ne peut pas nié que la roche métamorphosé pouvait etre avant une roche de LAVE deversé par un volcan ou des volcan en activité,la encore y avait t'il la presence de l'eau quand la lave c'est repandu a la surface de mars,une question qui reste en suspend pour l'instant tout comme la formation des blueberry.

The article to which Bob referred:

http://www.lipfordm.com/wtsi/RPage/RPage.htm

is certainly of great interest and thought provoking. It indicates the great probability of bacterial life on Mars at some point in time, including the present. Which bacterial life formed the mineral concretions or spherules.

There are some facets of the spherules that puzzle me, however.

They are surprisingly similar in size.

They are extremely widely distributed.

All I have seen have occurred on sand or above depressions and fissures in rock which contain sand.

Some are located on slopes where mineral spheres would be expected to roll down.

They are covered with some micro structure that gives them a fuzzy appearance.

They show no evidence of any kind of damage due to any sort of erosion.

We are told they are but 20% Fe304 (hematite or common rst). Of what does the remaining 80% consist?

All of the conditions that account for geologic formation of the berries are rather specific. I find it improbable that those specific conditins would exist with such precision over such a wide area - essentially the circumference of the planet.

Because life forms are both adaptable and reproduceable, viewing the berries as live, possibly fungi-like, entities tends to satisfy all the requirements for their presence. With a sufficiently low metabolic rate the minimal amounts of water and other sustaining nutrients might suffice.

So the question of whether they are purely mineral, or concretions instigated by bacterial action, of living entities is, in my opinion, still undetermined.

I am continuously amazed at why some people can not see any possible geologic origin for the spheres, in a geologically dominant environment, but can easily see a biologic origin for them where not one piece of possitive proof has been uncovered on a "dead" planet. Go figure.

"geologically dominant environment"

???????????

What's that ?

Tom I think the geolocial explanation is still a possibility for a lot of people discussing sings of life on mars.

But how about vice versa ?