Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

Shaun Barrett · 2003-05-26 18:31:26

Josh writes:-

So whether we like it or not, the conspiracy theories do mangle themselves within the science.

I think I see your point, Josh. It's difficult to argue with your statement that "Big discoveries mean more funding, .. ". In fact, I myself have been guilty of gently pushing the conspiracy wagon for just such reasons!
It's sometimes difficult for me to understand why NASA downplays so many of the Earth-like features of Mars, while seeming to emphasise its more alien features. And I think many people here at New Mars must know of my doubts regarding the Viking results and the lurid red portrayal of the Martian surface with its pink sky.

This point about possible standing bodies of water could certainly be lumped together with other surface 'anomalies' which are apparently ignored by NASA. It could be presented as one more example of a deliberate policy of obfuscation designed to keep the public in the dark for some reason. Big discoveries don't just mean more funding, they also mean more public interest and more pressure to send humans to investigate. If you don't want that kind of pressure, you simply ignore things like possible lakes of brine until people lose interest and go away. You may even deliberately 'turn up the red saturation' on all pictures from the surface to accentuate the alien nature of the place. Why? .. I don't know. Maybe it is all paranoia.

But what I was trying to say was that we can take cases like this in isolation, divorced from notions of conspiracy theories. We can simply call upon all the objectivity at our disposal and examine the pictures dispassionately.
When I examine them in that way, I get the impression I could certainly be looking at pools and lakes. When I ask myself what else they could be, I have great difficulty coming up with a plausible alternative. Could there be an alternative, then? Certainly! But, at least for now, my best hypothesis is that we're dealing with lakes - probably of brine.
You, Josh, find the evidence unconvincing, which is a perfectly valid point of view and I respect that. And you may ultimately prove to be correct and the 'briny lake' hypothesis may have to be discarded. But I can live with that.

I have two questions for you, though: Firstly, have you seen many of the pictures which seem to show standing bodies of water? And, secondly, if you have and you discount the 'briny lake' hypothesis, have you any ideas as to the nature of these features?
???

Josh Cryer · 2003-05-27 01:22:11

Well, I have acquired the papers Rex was talking about, and I'm going to go over them in the next few days (though I'm somewhat busy, so we'll see how quick I get back with a substantive response).

Let me answer your two questions, though.

Firstly, have you seen many of the pictures which seem to show standing bodies of water?

Definitely, I actually hung out at the TEM forums for a few weeks during which time I tried to debunk standing water theories. I admit, I did learn a few things about gasses and such, but I didn't really change my mind about most of the variables. The only thing I think is obvious is that at certain times of the day, it's possible for small pools of thing liquid water (film) to exist. This isn't the kind of thing you guys seem to be discussing, however. I've always maintained that there has to be more evidence than just pictures, especially if the pictures don't show any changes over a period of time. Where's the theory discussing how a pool of brine could last for significant periods of time? Perhaps Rex has touched on that point, but I'll have to see, and if he argues it effectively, I may yet change my mind. Heck, we don't even need it to fit our current theories (about the formations we have seen).

And, secondly, if you have and you discount the 'briny lake' hypothesis, have you any ideas as to the nature of these features?

Well, I'm no geologist, and I frankly wouldn't consider myself anything more than an amateur scientist, but a lot of common sense does come in to play, here. I have seen pictures of glass tunnels on Mars, does that mean that they're automatically glass tunnels?

I might not necessarily have an explaination for all the features, but I'm sure I can come up with a counter-argument that's simple common sense, if the facts (or lack thereof) are in opposition.

Sagan once said that the true visible test of intelligent life are lines resembling structures, or something along those lines. His words were completely trashed by the likes of TEM by using them whenever lines suddenly showed up on an image. Images, which, of course, are highly modified to add lots of cute artifacts.

This isn't science. This is politics.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-05-31 01:05:07

Any luck with those papers from Rex yet, Josh? I don't think NASA even has a 'mainstream' explanation for most of the 'briny lake' pictures I've seen. Or have they?
And I'm curious to hear either their (NASA's) or your explanation for at least some of them.
I reiterate, I do have an open mind about all this but I don't hold with Sagan's maxim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Mars is an alien world. All sorts of things may be equally possible - even though they don't fit into current paradigms. Just because lakes of brine haven't been part of NASA's view of the Martian landscape up to now, doesn't in any way mean they can't exist. In fact, the physics very definitely indicates that they can exist!
I don't find the notion of briny lakes on Mars to be a particularly 'extraordinary claim', so there is no need to erect extraordinarily onerous 'barriers of proof' - unless you are actually biased against finding such features. But then, that wouldn't be scientific, would it?
Science is duty-bound to treat all reasonable hypotheses alike. Standing bodies of briny water on Mars form part of a reasonable hypothesis and I, for one, tend to object quite strongly if people with their own personal agendas and axes to grind bring their own politics to bear on the situation by continually 'raising the bar' when it comes to evidence for such hypotheses!

All that people like Rex Carnes and myself want is for the evidence to be examined dispassionately and for reasonable conclusions to be reached. What we wish to avoid is pompous adherence to some sort of self-congratulatory, holier-than-thou attitude based on an immutable 'Mars is dry and that's that' paradigm!
Let's have a bit of scientific courage here, shall we?! And a bit less of the old 'It looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck ... but, because we don't believe in ducks, it must be a horse'!!!
:angry:

rgcarnes · 2003-06-03 20:15:45

Just a brief comment:

Experience in various organizations and various times in my career has shown me that there can be severe consequences if one doesn't overtly regard "Official Policy" as being equivalent to truth.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-06-04 04:09:27

Hi Rex!
Your comment is well taken ... and really quite disconcerting, since it seems to go right to the nub of the misgivings I have about 'big science' in the world today: You can't get funding unless you toe the party line. Departure from the popular paradigm is tantamount to professional suicide. It doesn't matter what your eyes tell you and it doesn't matter whether the facts back you up, anything you say or do had better fit in with the 'standard model' or ridicule and professional leprosy will be your lot!
It's small wonder very few people have the testicular fortitude to call a duck a duck!!

If there's one thing I hate more than the baseless claims of the lunatic fringe, it's the hypocrisy of the impenetrable edifice of a scientific community that's forgotten what a fresh idea looks like!

Excuse me ... I think I need a drink! :angry:

Josh Cryer · 2003-06-04 04:53:57

I really do apologize for taking so long to respond Rex. I hope no one was anticpiating my opinion or anything. I've read the paper about four times now. The first time was a quick skim, and instead of quickly replying, I decided to wait until I had some free time. I know I can sometimes be quick to respond, and I might gloss over something.

I found the paper to be quite interesting. But, why is it that, in the analysis, your first and only explination is that it must be a flow?

The paper doesn't detail how image selection was done, whether or not it was hand-selected, or whether or not an automated process was used. Not that it's that important, but the author does suggest that an objective approach was taken.

The comment that ?[Curvey features would] be unlikely to have been produced by wind, in that the wind would have to always follow the twisting and turning of a water-course-like feature no matter how much it twisted and curved.? seems to be wrong to me. Wind erosion, just like water, is limited by the fact that softer substences erode quicker than harder substences. Also, given that it's been shown that much of Mars' regolith contains frozen water, it's not all that unlikely that evaporation or slow-sublimation could help the wind erode surface features even more (helping create a more chaotic path). Note that, of course, there's no reason that what we're observing could have been created long ago.

Personally, I view the ?glacier-like flow of material from the upper right corner? (in the correctly oriented image) to merely be sand dunes. Note that this latitude is subject to fairly-long mildly-warm summers, and over long periods of time, a liquid water surface feature should dry up until surface activity ceased and any actual underground water was sufficiently insulated (how long it would take, I don't know, perhaps a simulation is in order).

The reason I believe that this is a sand-dune style feature is that when the picture was originally taken, spring was about to begin, and the region basically experienced summer for the duration up until the second picture was taken. If this was a surface feature consisting of briny liquid water in an environment which reached upwards of 70 degrees with near vaccume atmospheric pressures, wouldn't we notice some bit of change? I suspect that at the very least, the orientation of certain features or swaths would change. But I notice basically no change in the dunes themselves (the objects which we are to believe are moving). The darkened areas are more or less the same, also. Basically no change at all, at least not enough to suggest that there are some interesting chemical reactions going on here.

My conclusion? Not enough evidence to convince me. I still don't know. I believe that all we're seeing here is a sand dune with some darker regolith beside it. Nothing more.

I think I'm being open minded here. The definition of an open mind is a skeptic whose mind can be changed with sufficient evidence.

Shaun,

I reiterate, I do have an open mind about all this but I don't hold with Sagan's maxim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

There's a mouse behind you.

There's a mouse behind you who knows how to do high order math and is a graduate of MIT. He helped program the ARM backend to GCC and is fairly fluent with the harmonica.

There's water on Mars.

There's water on Mars which sits upon the surface as a liquid in god awfully cold temperatures, not evaporating when it does actually get warm, lasting periods of time we cannot calculate.

Rex,

There's one last thing, I wanted to hold until the last bit. Your email proposed the theory that basically, an impact could've caused hydrothermal upwellings. I think it's entirely plausible. The question now is whether or not Odyssey is looking at these locations and determining whether or not there is heat coming from them. I'm certain that the Odyssey team would enjoy making such a discovery.

Palomar · 2003-06-04 07:45:16

I reiterate, I do have an open mind about all this but I don't hold with Sagan's maxim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Mars is an alien world. All sorts of things may be equally possible - even though they don't fit into current paradigms.

*Hmmmm. Shaun, you've made me rethink Sagan's statement.

--Cindy

rgcarnes · 2003-06-04 18:01:49

Josh,

Thanks for reading the paper. At least you found it interesting.

Image selection was through use of the rules delineated in the paper and a lot of time on the internet on MSSS.com.

You made no mention of the concept outlined in the paper of indications that there is a vertical offset amoung key image features further corroborated by the stereo pair composed from parts of the two images taken over a year apart. I did find it interesting myself that the upper features had no apparent adequate means of support unless floating or resting on a transparent substance.

The second of the two images mentioned in the paper, when looked at in its entirety, does, I believe, contain evidence of evaporation and reprecipitation, and not coincidentally a large number of "dust devil" tracks. It's worth taking a look at, if you haven't yet. It is readily available on MSSS.com.

Cindy M., Shaun Barrett, and Josh Cryer have a copy of my last paper. If anyone else is interested, send me an e-mail to see what we're talking about. Make up your own mind.

rgcarnes · 2003-06-04 18:25:51

Josh,

So far all of the Odyssey information I've seen has insufficient lateral resolution to definitively establish for or against elevated local temperatures at the site focused on by the paper. If anyone else can find high resolution data, please let me know.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-06-05 03:22:38

Forgive me, Josh. I really do feel like a fool but I have to confess I don't understand all of your comments regarding my post.
The latter parts I believe I recognise as irony but the reference to a small, highly educated, musical rodent with mathematical insights and a propensity towards sneaking up behind people is as obscure to me as quantum chromodynamics, I'm afraid!
The acronym ARM means nothing to me beyond Age-Related Maculopathy and the term GCC could mean the Greater Chicago Council, for all I know. (I did recognise MIT, though! )
For the benefit of the intellectually pedestrian amongst us, Josh, perhaps you could be a little more explicit.

In seeking to save what's left of my reputation, I can reveal triumphantly that I understood Cindy's response in its entirety!

Josh Cryer · 2003-06-06 02:42:14

rgcarnes, the right image on the stereo pair was somewhat misaligned, so, even though I did do the cross eyed technique, I don't know if I can give much weight to the image itself. Stereo images typically need to be taken the same way only at different positional angles. When you have a tilt, it's really hard to get rid of it without adding some artifacts.

I am only assuming that offsets would be quite large. The resolution of MOC may not be spy-satellite quality, but I believe that the resolution you calculated in your paper would be adequate enough for one to be able to determine if anything was moving about.

If you keep your eyes on this feature, I would very much like to see subsequent pictures taken of the area.

Shaun,

ARM is a computer chip. And GCC is a compiler. So the mouse... which scurried away the momment you looked, BTW, and is off somewhere where I can't get a hold of him... sorry about that... anyway, he wrote the machine definition bits for GCC so that it could compile code on an ARM.

rgcarnes · 2003-06-07 13:30:30

Josh,

You are truly a great critic. And I don't mean anything negative by that. It's only by defining the likely criticisms that I can hopefully identify potential problems, clarify my interpretations, and more closely approach the unequivical.

I say 'approach' for the reason that there are still people who believe that the earth is flat, etc.

There are some fairly quick and simple remedies to the factors you have identified. The two images were, in fact, captured by the Mars Orbital Camera high resolution subsystem at two different positions and times as documented by the MSSS.com data. One was taken at the nadir position and (is the word 'position' redundant when used next to the word 'nadir'?) the other from an offset angle.

The second image was taken along a slightly different orbital angle with repect to the first, hence the need for relative
rotations between the two images. As I recall, the second image also benefited from some slight contrast and brightness adjustments and some slight resizing for the reason that the two images' pixels were not the same sizes. As the second image was taken from an off-nadir vantage point, the corrections to make the images comparable also involved different magnifications in the vertical and horizontal image directions.

I don't remember at the moment whether or not Malin's site had a corrected image for the asymmetry, or not. If they do, use their corrected image as they have established routines for such operations.

Now for the simple part: Simply take their images, select the obviously common and pertinent portions of both images, do the best job at making them equivalent in size/contrast, and print them out separately at the highest resolution and largest size your printer can manage. Obviously the higher the better. The size is important in that one can focus on the two images in your field of view no matter what their size and distance, within reason, and the ink jet, or laser printer dots relative size can be made totally inconsequential to one's perception of the view. Do the image rotation and allignment by hand with the two separate printouts! It still works and gives the depth ordering as laid out in my paper.

The image I e-mailed to you was made the way it was because of a time crunch and in order to make it small enough to be e-mailable.

I assure you that I didn't take either or both images and subtly change either or both sets of pixels to achieve such ordering, but, though you might not be motivated to do what I just suggested, it will take my possible manipulations out of the picture, so to speak.

Note: When one tries to view the images as a stereo pair with a Holmes-Bates type stereo viewer, the magnification of the two lenses in the viewer makes the printer artifacts way too apparent at the size the images must be.

When I look at the number of words on this page, I'm sorry it took so much space, but someone other than myself needs to go to the effort to test these factors. With the directions just given, that should be possible.

rgcarnes · 2003-08-14 22:58:26

The abstract for my paper is available to everyone now in the Mars Society library section that was recently implemented on their web site, and the paper itself is available there also, but for Mars Society members only.

dickbill · 2003-11-12 18:34:06

The abstract for my paper is available to everyone now in the Mars Society library section that was recently implemented on their web site, and the paper itself is available there also, but for Mars Society members only.

Hi Rex

I am reading your paper. Right now I have some questions:

The hypothesis of liquid water EVAPORATING from the surface until it reaches the temperature gradient where it solidifies in snow is complex. Can you elaborate on that a little bit ?

Well, I have to continue to read, very interesting paper.

Palomar · 2003-11-13 09:40:03

The abstract for my paper is available to everyone now in the Mars Society library section that was recently implemented on their web site, and the paper itself is available there also, but for Mars Society members only.
Hi Rex
I am reading your paper. Right now I have some questions:
The hypothesis of liquid water EVAPORATING from the surface until it reaches the temperature gradient where it solidifies in snow is complex. Can you elaborate on that a little bit ?
Well, I have to continue to read, very interesting paper.

*Um...where is the library link at the Mars Society web page? I can't find it.

Thanks.

--Cindy

dickbill · 2003-11-13 10:23:34

*Um...where is the library link at the Mars Society web page? I can't find it.
Thanks.
--Cindy

you'll need your password to access the papers. It's in "Mars resources," 2002, title is : computerized search for liquid water.

rgcarnes · 2003-11-14 00:40:58

dickbill,

You are certainly correct that the transfer of water (in whatever state) from Mars' surface to the boundary where the temperature is low enough for it to condense out as snow and fall back to the surface can be complex when looked at in great detail.

Lets back off a bit and take look at what we know about the properties of water. (I suggest looking at Dr. Gilbert Levine and his son Ron's 1998 SPIE paper about the plausability of the Viking labeled release experiment having detected life on Mars in the '70's. They have good treatment of water and its triple point.)

Here goes my stab at explaining water and it's properties: Below 273 degrees Kelvin = 32 degrees Farennheit = 0 degrees Celsius, water's most stable state is as a solid, ice. With a temperature high enough above absolute zero (0 degrees Kelvin), there is some probability that some water molecules will obtain enough energy to free themselves from the solid ice surface as individual water molecules comprising a gas. This process of becoming a gas is called sublimation and it takes energy. The number of calories per gram of water required to do this is about 638 under very low pressure

This total can be broken down, in nice round numbers, to 88 calories per gram for water to go from 273 degree Kelvin ice to 273 degree Kelvin liquid water, and 550, plus a little additional, calories per gram for the liquid water to become the gas we call water vapor at 273.16 degrees Kelvin we call water's triple point.

If the water has a vapor pressure it'll evaporate, right? The answer is of course yes, but it won't get away completely before exchanging some of it's energy through collisions with the much lower energy atmosphere just above the surface of Mars, latching onto other water molecules which have also been sapped of energy by the cold atmospheric gas and eventually falling back to the surface as solid particles, or sticking to higher surface points of the land as frost crystals which likely have some probability of subliming back into the cycle, or some seasonal likelihood of warming to become liquid and flowing or seeping back downward.

Each change of state requires an energy transfer,--up to become more fluid, --and down to become less fluid. Notice that the temperature of our gram of water did not have to change, and that the ice can go directly to vapor, but we still have to pay the about 638 calorie price (toll) in energy added to get a gram of free-single-water-molecule gas from solid state water. We have to lose that same energy to get back to ice.

At water's triple point, we don't get much water vapor but all three states(or phases) of water can co-exist at equilibrium at almost exactly Mars' surface atmospheric pressure as recorded at the Pathfinder and Viking I landing sites. I personally suspect that the 6.3 millibar typical measured atmospheric pressure at those locations is not a coincidental number as that is the vapor pressure of water at it's triple point.

I've not mentioned things like super cooled liquid water or other metastable states which can exist simply because I'm mostly considering equilibrium systems.

While I'm at it, I think we should consider the possibility that the "dust devils" on Mars might be being powered by the huge energy stored in rising columns of surface water vapor carrying 638 calories per gram just waiting to be released as it changes to a solid. Perhaps their opaque appearance is due to the presence of ice crystals that are being formed, or which are being lofted from the surface by the rotating winds only to serve as nucleation sites for the water vapor. Solid particles have higher unit mass and would be thrown out to a kind of 'event horizon' surface allowing the lower unit mass, lower pressure, vapor core to reach much higher altitudes than would be possible without the rotational motion.

If anyone made it this far, its wordy, but please forgive me.

Rxke · 2003-11-14 05:56:49

Rex might be onto something. According to University of Arkansas Scientists, their experiments in a Mars-atmosphere room show it is quite possible to have pools of liquid water on Mars.

dickbill · 2003-11-14 12:56:59

If the water has a vapor pressure it'll evaporate, right?

It will surely, but the cinetic is also probably important. If you think that the dark area described in your paper is a liquid, well water, how long would you expect to stand before complete disapearance.
Do you require a source of energy below that water to keep it liquid (geothermic?) or is it water at the triple point of equilibrium.

but it won't get away completely before exchanging some of it's energy through collisions with the much lower energy atmosphere just above the surface of Mars, latching onto other water molecules which have also been sapped of energy by the cold atmospheric gas and eventually falling back to the surface as solid particles, or sticking to higher surface points of the land as frost crystals which likely have some probability of subliming back into the cycle, or some seasonal likelihood of warming to become liquid and flowing or seeping back downward.

I understand that, but again, is the cinetic relevant here ? would you have snow formation 1 meter above the surface for example, or much higher. You also mention CO2 in your paper, and basically say that CO2 is heavier than H2O, so H2O molecules must be floatting above CO2. How this is relevant ?.
Am I correct ?

At water's triple point, we don't get much water vapor but all three states(or phases) of water can co-exist at equilibrium at almost exactly Mars' surface atmospheric pressure as recorded at the Pathfinder and Viking I landing sites. I personally suspect that the 6.3 millibar typical measured atmospheric pressure at those locations is not a coincidental number as that is the vapor pressure of water at it's triple point.

That's a very interesting point. Would you agree with that: almost all the sun energy received by Mars is used to sublimate the surface ice or frost deposited from former recondensation and help to maintain Mars atmosphere at the triple point of water equilibrium. Also, what's the role of the global dust storms in that equilibrium in your opinion ?
Do you think "this" has implications for terraforming ? everybody want to warm MArs, but what happen if MArs get colder for a time, (we shade Mars from the sun ray),
then we quickly warm Mars, do we escape from that triple point equilibrium ? Can we go towards higher atmospheric pressure that way ?

While I'm at it, I think we should consider the possibility that the "dust devils" on Mars might be being powered by the huge energy stored in rising columns of surface water vapor carrying 638 calories per gram just waiting to be released as it changes to a solid.

fascinating, the dust devil must be relatively warm then. I guess they are below the THEMIS camera resolution. I wish to see one of these with the rovers soon.

rgcarnes · 2003-11-15 22:33:40

dickbill,

Thanks for your interest. I'll try, and I hope somewhat succeed, in answering your questions in order.

1. I think the mentioned dark areas are water. I don't know how long they'll remain. If they are liquid water there may be some heat source other than sunlight and/or the presence of dissolved salts. If it is liquid capped by solid water, then the picture changes somewhat. We know that both liquid water and ice can be transparent. The vapor pressure of ice is much lower than that of liquid water according to some information I've found in searches yielding weather science sites. Other sources of heat might include residual energy from the impact(s) events which caused the crater(s) which contain the images.

There are also papers out there which claim residual hydrothermal activity took place in some of earth's impact craters and that it continued for 1000 year time periods afterward. Then there is also possible thermal activity coming from within Mars. By restricting that specific paper to a discussion of that one place on Mars I left all of these possibilities open, though individually they may, or may not, be probable.

2. I suspect that snow can form within a 1 meter height above the planet's surface, although I'm certain that the height would vary according to local conditions. I've seen it apparently form and fall on certain clear days within about 5 meters of the ground level here on earth. Perhaps some of the "lake effect" snows as occur so often around Buffalo, New York might be a related phenomenon.

3. CO2, at molecular mass 44 is heavier than single molecule water vapor at molecular mass 18, so single molecule water vapor would be buoyant in a CO2 atmosphere until a fluid containing some fraction of clusters of at least three water molecules at an aggregate unit mass of 3 X 18 = 54 forms. As these aggregates grow, energy would be being released, while at some point snow particles large enough to drop to the ground would form.

4. I don't think of the triple point as "nailing" a region of Mars to that temperature. I believe that some latitudes of the red planet happen to be near that temperature, and that the presence of water in all three of its states can have a stabilizing effect for the reason that changes of physical state of water involve sizable energy transfers for the changes to take place.

5. I'm not sure of the relationships between surface water and the global dust storms, though they are probably very interesting. Mars is a big place and can probably be very dry in some parts.

6. I share your anticipation of the data to come from the new probes. I hope the parameters the probes are capable of measuring and/or observing are relevant to our discussions.

dickbill · 2003-11-16 10:39:52

Rex, about your hypothesis that what we see in the picture is water and your explanations here, I accept the possibility. I see no reasons to be over skeptical. Meaning that after all the "propaganda" text book that liquid water cannot exist on Mars "no matter what", I now think that very locally, water solutions can stay liquid on Mars for a relatively long time. The "no matter what" was wrong.
In addition, this has been also suggested by other with the gullies stories on the crater's rims. I remember the authors mentioned a " very recent time" event for the gullies. So it's not big deal now to say that liquid water is maybe rare, but not impossible, on the Mars surface.
That doesn't change the global picture of Mars as a desert, just add the complexity of the picture.
The last MOC statement is that maybe 3% of the Mars surface has been sampled, maybe more of these rare spots will be found.

Talking about water solutions, what are the most likely "solution" that we should expect on Mars. If superoxydes and peroxydes are common, maybe concentrated peroxyde solutions ?
Should we expect very acid subterranean lakes near the martian volcanoes ?
What else ?
What happens if we put artificial/reconstituted regolith in water, what dissolves and what does not, do we know that ?

rgcarnes · 2003-11-16 16:25:08

dickbill,

Your comments about the presence of peroxides on Mars again bring out my conservative side. My answer is not based on enough information to be scientific, but I suspect that while there may be some in some places on Mars they probably don't rule the planet to any great extent. I believe the Levines did their homework, so I would side with them in such matters.

If we allow ourselves to accept the possibilities that water can be exposed to the martian atmosphere, then one, perhaps simplistic, idea would be that carbonic acid could form to some extent, as it's just carbon dioxide disolved in water. If there are cyanobacteria on some submerged surfaces, then they would break down the CO2, utilize the carbon and give off the O2. There might be regions near such surfaces where the water is saturated with oxygen by this means, similar to some of the ice capped lakes of the artic regions of earth. The higher the local pressure, the higher the possible oxygen content such that if the pressure were released, and/or such oxygen saturated water were brought closer to the surface, free O2 would bubble out of it.

The possibilities for obtaining oxygen for a manned expedition in this way should be obvious. A pipe run down into such a region of O2 saturated water could perhaps be used to pump such fluid near the surface where it would fizz in the decreased pressure. Once started it could concievably even be self pumping as long as the sun and photosynthesis could replenish the O2. Of course one wouldn't want to tap into a reservoir of H2S without the means of coping with it.

dickbill · 2003-11-17 10:04:48

The possibilities for obtaining oxygen for a manned expedition in this way should be obvious. A pipe run down into such a region of O2 saturated water could perhaps be used to pump such fluid near the surface where it would fizz in the decreased pressure. Once started it could concievably even be self pumping as long as the sun and photosynthesis could replenish the O2. Of course one wouldn't want to tap into a reservoir of H2S without the means of coping with it.

This is certainly a good process to get bioproduced oxygen semi artificially. Aquarium tank "infused" with CO2 florish with higher plants (I mean not just algae but aquatic plants) and produced much more biomass and oxygen than without the CO2 (and strong light of course).
CO2 being the most abundant martian gas, no doubt that future martian settlers will 'boost' their biomas producing water pool that way.

I think that a higher level ecosystem is better than just a cyanobacteria based CO2/light/mineral reactor (I don't even call that an ecosystem). but I disgress from the topic, lakes on Mars.
I think that a simple answer to know what kind of water solution we can generally expect on Mars is to put some artificially reconstituted regolith in water and see what happen.

dickbill · 2003-11-17 13:41:56

To add more water in Rex windmill (watermill ?), MOC pic of day, Nov 17: Gullies

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/200 … index.html

they look fresh, no craters visible.

rgcarnes · 2004-01-05 05:42:34

As it's only a couple of days after the Mars Spirit probe landed, emotions are high and a pair of questions I posed there were quickly buried by subsequent posts without response, so this topic seems a better forum.

Does anyone else see what appears to be a conformal boundry layer over the raised horizon features on the initial Spirit panorama image release? Could this be an indication that there is a near-surface layer to the atmosphere over Gusev crater?

If so, Gilbert Levine's water cycle description in his 1998 SPIE paper would have some visible means of support.

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#26 2003-05-26 18:31:26

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

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Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#28 2003-05-31 01:05:07

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#29 2003-06-03 20:15:45

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#30 2003-06-04 04:09:27

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#31 2003-06-04 04:53:57

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#32 2003-06-04 07:45:16

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#33 2003-06-04 18:01:49

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#34 2003-06-04 18:25:51

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#35 2003-06-05 03:22:38

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#36 2003-06-06 02:42:14

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#37 2003-06-07 13:30:30

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#38 2003-08-14 22:58:26

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#39 2003-11-12 18:34:06

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#40 2003-11-13 09:40:03

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#41 2003-11-13 10:23:34

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#42 2003-11-14 00:40:58

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#43 2003-11-14 05:56:49

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#44 2003-11-14 12:56:59

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#45 2003-11-15 22:33:40

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#46 2003-11-16 10:39:52

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#47 2003-11-16 16:25:08

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#48 2003-11-17 10:04:48

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#49 2003-11-17 13:41:56

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#50 2004-01-05 05:42:34

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

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