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nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

Since we are talking about building soil, to me the easiest way to build it is to scrape it off phobos and transport it to the surface.
A better use exists for that carbon store though, but if we are just looking for a layer of soil i think phobos is the way to go.

Another thought would be to separate the c02 from a partially teraformed Mars atmosphere into its parts.
Separating co2 gets you a more oxygen rich atmosphere and a dark carbon based soil component.
It also adds lots of free oxygen that builds an ozone layer for Mars.
Why wait millions of years for plants to do the same thing?

Maybe plants are not the way to go for Mars, maybe bacteria and fungus will be better suited to get things ready for plants and people.

An Earth bog is mainly made of bacteria and fungus anyway, over 99% of the life in a bog are them.
Another down side to bogs is they like to create and release methane and hydrogen sulfide, on Earth not a big worry, but on Mars?

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Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
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RickSmith

Banned

From: Vancouver B.C.

Registered: 2007-02-17

Posts: 244

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

Carbon is not soil.  Soil is made up of fungus, bacteria, decomposing life, grains of minerals ions, microscopic mites, etc.

The only practical way to convert a planets atmosphere is using the ungodly amount of energy provided free from the sun via plants.  But to get plants you need soil, right?  Unless you find a species that is autotrophic (can live in an area with out soil).  If the species is cold resistant, UV resistant, acid resistant and nitrogen fixing then that is even better.  Interestingly, Robert Dyck has discussed a plant that has these properties, i.e. sphagnum moss.

The peat bogs we are talking about are made of sphagnum moss, not fungus.  As for bacteria they are everywhere with life.  sphagnum moss produces O2, not H2S.

Do you have a reference which says 99% of a living bog is made up of fungus and bacteria by any chance?  And even if they are, that is not an argument against them if they produce soil.

Rick

noosfractal

Member

From: Biosphere 1

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 824

Website

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

The only practical way to convert a planets atmosphere is using the ungodly amount of energy provided free from the sun via plants.

Yeah sorry nickname, I have to go with Rick on this one.  Plants self-replicate.  It is hard to overemphasize how incredible that ability is.  Even more, they will adapt to local conditions.  Once we create even mildly tolerable conditions they will cover the planet.  No factory can compete with this.

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nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

RickSmith,

Sorry but most of a peat bog is carbon, most of plant life and animal life is carbon based.

Almost all the soil on earth is made from weathered stone and carbon.
Plants and other life forms die and are the other ingredients in the soil and the carbon.

Carbon is not soil but without it you cant create it.
Neither can you create oil or coal without the carbon stored in plants and animals.

Bacteria grows at a rate that plants simply cant match.
You probably have more bacteria on the carpet bellow your feet than all other life forms on the planet put together.
If we want to alter mars bacteria will be the means, or at minimum to make it safe for plants.

We have countless forms of bacteria we can select to alter Mars, lots of them fix carbon and a few produce oxygen.

For all we know plants and animal life won't be able to adapt to 1/3 g.
Even if they can I'm 100% sure that the natural mutation rate on Mars will leave all but the most basic forms of life unable to keep up with cellular changes from a different gravitation field and additional radiation doses.

As a person in this occupation for  26 years i speak with some knowledge here.
I also live in Ontario Canada with peat bogs so I'm pretty familiar with them and what they smell like just bellow the surface.

Rick have you ever stepped in a wet peat bog?
Ever smell what comes up when you lift your foot up?
Anaerobic bacteria create the smell, the top 4 inches create the 02, the bottom 50 + feet don't.

I don't have a solid reference for bacteria as over 99% of all the weight of life on Earth, but pretty easy to find.
Most of the rest of that .5% left over is fungus and virus breaking down plant material to create the soil, and fungus in the soil.

A good example of how prolific bacteria has been on Earth is the deepest mines on earth are teaming with them a couple miles down.
They grow in boiling water, in nuclear reactor ponds, in very toxic environments and at pressures that kill everything else.
No reason exists to believe bacteria don't grow as far as the crust of earth is.

If we spread out all the plant material on earth we might get a couple feet of material, bacteria a few miles deep of material.
Everything else maybe a small fraction of an inch.

No reason we can't use bacteria and fungus to create soil, as soon as we have open water on Mars i bet they will already be there without our help.

noosfractal,

So do bacteria replicate, but at rates plants can't and under conditions plants can't.
Bacteria don't need special conditions to thrive, just wet and food
Most bacteria don't even need sunlight, most don't care about UV and radiation.
They can also adapt to local conditions in hours/days, not epochs as plants need to maintain genetic stability.

Why use such slow things as plants when we have an entire world for good bacteria to make the process happen in a few human life spans.

I'm not suggesting a factory to match what plants do, just suggesting we have better choices than plants.

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Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

noosfractal

Member

From: Biosphere 1

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 824

Website

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

I'm not suggesting a factory to match what plants do, just suggesting we have better choices than plants.

Oh okay.  Yes micro-organisms have a huge role to play in terraforming.  If we can get oceans then cyanobacteria can manufacture most of the oxygen we'll need.

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nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

noosfractal,

I agree, i think shallow oceans are way more efficient than any land based ecosystem anyway.
cyanobacteria  is a wonderful choice for shallow oceans or ponds on Mars, no worries of different G levels in either as gravity isn't felt as much in water.
Mutations should be minimal as the water is a shield to additional radiation and UV, we will still have higher than earth mutations but far less than land based organisms on Mars.

Ponds on Earth are really efficient places and very interesting to study the quantity of life even in a small one.
The pond wars for domination,  the invaders ,survivors,and co exist strategies are amazing in one,  under the surface of all that we see with our eyes is an even bigger bacteria, fungus and virus war in the same pond.

Algae from either ponds or oceans would be great stuff to start soil on land.
Collect it, spread it, plant it with seeds.
Vast amounts trace elements will probably be in the water of Mars for many thousands of years.
Algae will grow like mad for ages so we will probably have lots to spread around.

Earth took an awful long time for the bacteria to alter things into the shape we see them, i think we might have to follow that step on Mars to some degree to get a stable place.

Its a shot in the dark to get a happy balance with so many bacteria and so little knowledge of the inter dependances of other life on them, the toxic things they consume and the role in a balance they play.

On Mars that problem will be compounded with mutation rates.
Almost guaranteed we accidentally introduce bacteria we don't want that do things we don't want.
Even the ones we introduce to do particular jobs may run amuck or just do strange things.
Once on Mars we are stuck with them whatever they do.

If we imagine that 99% of life as bacteria has shaped this planet for more than 3.8 billion years, then we should believe that it has to be pretty important roles they are playing here to keep it as it is.

Earth should probably be know as the Bacteria planet with trace amounts of other things LOL
Guess that makes me a really small trace amount of a trace amount

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Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

Spatula

Member

From: Raleigh, NC

Registered: 2007-05-03

Posts: 68

Re: Building Soil: Alternatives to bogs

Carbon is not soil.  Soil is made up of fungus, bacteria, decomposing life, grains of minerals ions, microscopic mites, etc.

Topsoil is, but below that is a much larger layer of subsoil, which is a combination of rock and organic particles chemically derived from it. The subsoil is what really matters, as it contains most of the organic material above the planet's surface, and it is necessary for forming topsoil. It's much harder to assemble from the stratum underneath it though, that's why we have so many threads about it.