Broken spherele has dark spot inside it????

chaosman · 2004-03-07 10:41:19

Very good outcrop layering/ marble color images here:

[http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?showtopic=90]http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?showtopic=90

atomoid · 2004-03-08 22:19:59

As soon as I heard that the blueberries were concretions, which form slowly in water percolating through soft rock, I immediately thought of pearls. As you probably know, pearls form when shellfish such as oysters get an irritating grain of sand or suchlike into their soft inner parts. Their response is to coat the irritant in smooth material to ease the irritation ... et voila .. pearls!
Now, I'm not trying to say the martian blueberries were created by martian shellfish, but I just imagined they would probably originate with a small particle of something around which a sphere would precipitate gradually out of the mineral rich water - like a pearl but without the biology.
But then today I came across [http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/oct/papr/geo_conc.html]THIS ARTICLE, which contains some interesting information about concretions and the particles which form their nuclei.
Concretions, the most varied-shaped rocks of the sedimentary world, occur when a considerable amount of cementing material precipitates locally around a nucleus, often organic, such as a leaf, tooth, piece of shell or fossil.
Concretions vary in size, shape, hardness, and color, from objects that require a magnifying lens to be clearly visible to huge bodies 10 feet in diameter and weighing several hundred pounds.
I know these blueberries are martian and we have to consider the fact that the different environment on Mars may lead to geological features quite different to terrestrial ones. And I know that just because the most common nucleus for an earthly concretion is some form of biological detritus, doesn't mean the blueberries have to have biological material in their cores.
But the above article has suddenly made me much more curious about the dark spot in the middle of ERRORIST's blueberry!!

The "dark spot inside the spherule" to me doesnt look at all liek it is inside it, it looks more like its on the outside see [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1306 … 1.JPG.html]this sharp image of it. My impression is that the "dark spot" is a pock mark like so many of the other spherules have (which in itself is a mystery since concretions are not supposed to have vessicles). curiously, this spherule, like so many others, has been shattered, what could have done that? bits of rock or other spherules tossed around by impacts? temperature differentials?

Regarding the pseudo pearl formation for a "bit of nucleus" to form the concretion around, there doesnt seem to be any obvious nucleus to the sphereules that are cut in half in the many other MI images. they look pretty homogenous, not even the layering you get with usual concretions we se on earth, like thay had precipitated around nothing very large or different than the substance they are composed of. However, they do have an apparent outer shell structure. as you can see in [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1302 … 1.JPG.html]this old image of a shattered spherule (the big shard in the bottom half) which might be merely a chemical interaction with the bedrock around it during moist times (the bedrock itself seems to be covered everywhere with a healthy "rind" as well, suggesting copious mineralization with the soils around it)

Thanks for that concretions article,,, for more about fossils check out this [http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~weinberg/mars/]this mars fossils website, it has lots of interesting notes about Meridiani "fossil" issues raised here

here's a [http://www.marsunearthed.com/Opportunit … y37_3D.htm]great new 3D anaglyph of the bedrock contaning a dark spherule. The spherule looks very dark much like the "wet" ones underground are. Most interesting to me are all the little caves and hollows (termite galleries). is there any explanation for this kind of formation, it cant be wind erosion can it? and if so, why such a pattern? it looks to me like evidence of microbial protective film secretions that the microbes would excrete in order to stabilize their environment. Perfaps this microbial mat junk that gets fossilized is more erodable than the bedrock and so these termite galleries form as it erodes, or perhaps what were seing here, if some hollows turn out to be tubes, rock boring clams and worms come to mind... or hydrogen sulfide dissolving of the bedrock exuded by the miscroorganisms or by merely geological means (think Lechuguilla cave (sp?))...
any concurring/dissenting takes on this?

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-09 01:37:07

All very interesting observations, Atomoid.
I have to admit, I've never been able to identify anything in the middle of a martian blueberry which looks like a nucleus of 'foreign' material.
Errorist's dark spot is the closest candidate and, as you rightly point out, it's very debatable that it qualifies as a 'nucleus' since it doesn't look like it's strictly at the centre of its host blueberry!
But what if the dark spot is just one end of a dark cylindrical object around which the precipitate grew? Wouldn't this explain its appearance as a spot on one side of a cracked and eroded, slightly elongated, spherule?
??? Just a thought.

Then again, the concretions in terrestrial photos don't look anything like these martian spherules; not as small, not as many, and not as perfectly formed. And why do the martian spherules commonly have that dimple you mentioned, and why do they often have a smooth groove or linear indentation on one side?
Maybe these spherules aren't concretions at all. Maybe concretions are just the closest analogy NASA scientists could come up with to explain them (?). This is another planet, after all!

[P.S. I couldn't seem to get into that "mars fossils" site you linked for us. Is it just me?]

atomoid · 2004-03-09 05:20:33

that link works for me but its just terribly slow sometimes.

Wow, check out this Beehive Bedrock [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1316 … 1.JPG.html]image of a spherule mystery object.
Look along the orange peel texture at the lower right of the spherule, right where the shadow begins the terminator line, right where you can see the crescent of the shadow hit 5:00 after a moment it pops out at you -it seems to be a clear image of a six-legged insectish kind of thing, with perfect symetry no legs out of place, looking like an embossed fossil of an aphid or something with that sort of insectoidal shape straddling the spherule and flattened along its contour, its body and head straight facing up to the right and just below the largest bump that is visible on the spherule as if encroaching upon it to feed.

If this exists and is an insect, then what could be the process to fossilize something liek this? coudl the spherule be loose enough for a bug to crawl squeeze in the space to be part of a food chain feeding off the sulfur bacteria thriving on the wet soil/spherule interface (maybe thats why some of the spherules have pocks and notches and dimples, theyve been partially consumed or eroded by biological action or secretions...) and then get stuck and pressed to be fossilized flat like this??? no, probably just the fossilized part is harder and hasnt eroded so it sticks up , though only a fraction of a millimeter..

Its clear that this is a very shallow embossing on the spherule and is only visible due to the incident light angle casting the shadow very clearly outlining its subtle form on the spherule. liek the face on mars this woudl probably never be seen indifferent light.

i remember someone in another thread, maybe it was another forum, way back last month talking about a "crab" like thing on the first composite image they made with the 3D mapping render and this "crab" was on the edge of the bumpy bedrock but it was also probably a artifact of the render since it wasnt on the raw images, well this looks sorta similar...

...or maybe ive just been staring into my computer screen too much lately :bars: :bars2: :bars3: need :sleep:

chaosman · 2004-03-09 05:32:23

Very interesting indeed.

Seems that we have a couple of new interesting marbles in the new images:

1. A flattened type (like a sphere deformed from pressure from one or two sites)

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 33M2M1.JPG]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....2M1.JPG

2. A marble with a "leaf like" substructure

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 53M2M1.JPG]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....2M1.JPG

Does it point toward any haypothesis or against any hypothesis ?

Any explanations ? New Hypothesis ?

All I can say is "strange, strange, strange..." but that means nothing...

The "leaf" looks particular starange, doesn't it ?

ERRORIST · 2004-03-09 05:49:05

Looks to me like they are growing as they eat the sulfur rich rock. Look at the small one then compare to the lower left larger one. You can see how the bedrock has been consumed next to the sphere and then the sphere grows into the space it just ate somehow. And what is that veiny looking structure in that one to the left??? Looks like the seam on a baseball.

[http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1316 … 1.JPG.html]http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1316 … 1.JPG.html

chaosman · 2004-03-09 07:24:28

Yes...and...

Look at that one ...

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 52M2M1.JPG]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....2M1.JPG

It looks like (JUST SPECULATION !!!) the big "thing" has two "channels" connecting it to one of the marbles.

The lower left marble shows bifurcation (mirror symetry) again....

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-09 07:57:22

O.K. Atomoid. The "Mars Fossils" site seems to be working now. Thanks, it's a very interesting look at some of the microscopic images from Opportunity and particularly the spherules.
It's really quite remarkable how many of the spherules have stems. And these stems might explain the dimples in the spherules without stems(! ) - a dimple may just be where the spherule used to have a stem before it broke off.

Not being a geologist, I can't say what it is I'm looking at in some of these pictures. I suppose it's not impossible that biology was involved in the formation of some of these objects but, unless you know geology particularly well, how can you rule out a non-living origin? Even if you do know geology particularly well, how can you rule out a non-living origin on an essentially alien planet where all kinds of unusual processes may have been at work which you've never encountered on Earth?
I think we'll need more definitive evidence than this before we can rule out geology and start talking biology.
???

Marineris Sauce · 2004-03-09 10:13:02

That article was very interesting indeed, Atomoid. One immediate question that comes to mind is: Are there any concretion forming spherules on Earth that seem to form off of 'branches' or ' tendrils' and then drop-off to the ground as these appear to? I can't seem to get my head around an 'erosional' explanation on these images. Though given the .38 gravity and 1% atmospheric pressure coupled with the briney quality of the soil and so forth... It's so tough to come to any definitiveness either way. We humans are experts at 'seeing things that aren't there'. (But we're also great at NOT seeing what is plainly obvious and staring us in the face..) Even so, I have to concur with Shawn on this one;

I think we'll need more definitive evidence than this before we can rule out geology and start talking biology.

(But still, that doesn't change the fact that some of those pix give me the willies...) ???

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-10 07:49:22

Further to your interesting "Mars Fossils" link, Atomoid, I found a reference to the picture labelled 5a, taken by Opportunity on Sol 33 using its microscopic camera, at a different website ... surprise, surprise .. The Enterprise Mission website!

An amateur fossil hunter with 34 years experience in the field was very taken with the segmented appearance of the "mars fossil", comparing it with fossils of terrestrial crinoids. (The Crinoid, sometimes known as the sea-lily, first appeared in Earth's seas over 500 million years ago and is described as a 'filter-feeding, marine, plant-like animal'). He sent TEM a side-by-side picture of the purported martian fossil and a terrestrial one, for direct comparison.

That picture can be seen [http://www.enterprisemission.com/articl … lComp1.jpg]HERE.

It may just be a coincidence that one small piece of Mars happens to look like a broken fossil of a crinoid. I think I'd need to see more evidence before making up my mind. But it sure is thought-provoking, isn't it?
???

atomoid · 2004-03-10 19:19:18

Thart ones really a dead-ringer for a crinoid, if not, its a crazy coincidence given that opportunity, in teh scheme of things, hasnt really seen that many rocks yet. is it crazy to assume we could have seen so many fossils by now? either that or Mars was just teeming with a thriving ecosystem way back when so there are fossils everywhere, or at least we got lucky and found layer filled with em...

anyone heard anything about any method of dating the layers were seeing? if there were epochs on Mars that were most capable of supporting life, those layers should be filled with evidence, it couldnt be that we landed a hole-in-one at just the right layer could it? would deeper layers (such as well see at endurance) be older than the life epochs so theyll come up empty handed.

Could be that the topmost layer is bound to be the most life-saturated layer, since the topmost layer of Mars might be the one last accrued when Mars was geologically and atmospherically active in sediment formation, etc, when life had its hey-day. Perhaps Mars died a quick death when its geological activity ceased and no more big changes have occurred since the last bedrock was laid down, just a bunch of dust blowing around and accumulating on a briny base, punctuated by a few meteor impacts and cyclical climate wanderings... therefore evidence of the highest abundance and diversity of life should be preserved in the topmost bedrock...

...it makes me wonder how many crinoid-esque rock formations fossil hunters find here on earth that after investigation just turn out to be look-alike erosion features, etc... any geologists out there disappointed in their "coulda-been" earth fossils that turn out to be nothing more than intersting rocks? a common occurrence?

ERRORIST · 2004-03-10 19:32:59

I bet Mars had only one moon back when life was still existant. The tidal forces could have created the heat for life.
An asteroid or comet broke the moon apart, and knocked it (them) into a different orbit and thus the tidal forces vanished. All we have now are fossils unless they evolved to live under ground now.

atomoid · 2004-03-11 15:48:34

whats this [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1322 … 1.JPG.html]hole in the soil here? did they try to press it with a tool, never seen this mark on anything else before...

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2004-03-11 17:05:25

Well done NASA, great images

Marineris Sauce · 2004-03-15 17:47:21

Unnerving! Look around the edges of these layered plates of outcrop in the new photo below. (upper left edge, upper right edge, lower right edge) These Spherules are sticking out all around the edges of each slab! Any info yet on the composition of these Martian Blueberries? (I secretly hope that they officially name these spherules 'blueberries'.)

I really hope they clear this mystery up once and for all, before Opportunity moves on to Endurance... but then again, maybe the mother-berry-lode of all berries will be waiting for us there!
But seriously, I want to know what these damnable things are made of! :bars: Before I go mad!!

Now excuse me while I go off and have a whopping slice of homemade blueberry pie!:;):

Rxke · 2004-03-19 12:30:44

Seen this one? Several with what looks to be a hole in them... [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1328 … 1.JPG.html]http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1328 … 1.JPG.html at least three without doubt, one middle pic, down under, another upper mid...

ERRORIST · 2004-03-19 13:45:46

Looks like various stages of decomposing organisms that have been fossilized since they are hematite now.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-22 06:39:47

I'm surprised the 'fossil crinoid' from Mars hasn't caused more of a furore than it has.
True to form, The Enterprise Mission, noting the fact that NASA immediately 'RATed' over the purported fossil and destroyed it, is talking up a storm of controversy. TEM, of course, adheres to its conspiracy theory that NASA is not only ignoring solid evidence of previous life on Mars, but deliberately attempting to cover it up for obscure and nefarious reasons.

But, ignoring the hardline cospiracy theorists, why has NASA ignored this peculiar shape in the martian strata? Even assuming it is wholly obvious to them that the shape is absolutely not a fossil, why do they not share with us laymen the reasoning behind their disdain for what looks suspiciously biological to the average 'man-in-the-street'.
C'mon Dr. Squyres, talk us out of it! We're not completely stupid; you can reason with us.
:;):

synthomus · 2004-03-22 12:47:01

No, I'm not Dr. Squyres, but anyway, yes Shaun, I'm very much d'accord with your wonderment and reasoning about the crinoid issue as well as with your appeal to Dr. Squyres. The compelling photographic comparison to crinoids clearly stands out from most of that tabloid-style smudge on enterprisemission.com. The first image which highlights the bifurcation of the crinoid fossil together with a very similar feature on the martian outcrop absolutely strikes me and should do so to many more folks on the streets. But, as the crinoid photo didn't even make it to a space.com mention yet, let alone to any broader media, how could they all know about it? I don't put the blame on the MER/JPL staff, their caution is somehow understandable. Remember, if they weren't perfectly cautious people we wouldn't stroll on Mars now. Just check the [http://www.astrobio.net/news/article611.html]Martian Chronicles...
Anyhow the coming weeks and months will show if there will be any serious attempts of issuing this martian fossil/pseudofossil case.
Dr. Squyres and team, think again about the benefit of some more public awareness for the fantastic riddles you recently found! Beside of the crinoid-like feature we also haven't heard much from you about the perplexing axial symmetrie of the spherules (as indicated by the two holes on many of them) as well as of their apparent coating. :sleep: :angry:

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-22 19:40:20

Thanks for the response, Synthomus.
I'd just like to state clearly that I don't necessarily think we've found a fossilised crinoid-like creature on Mars. Nature can produce some fascinating shapes without the need for biological intervention and we do need to be careful about interpretations. This is especially true when dealing with rock formations on an alien world, where the processes of erosion aren't well understood.

However, having said that, I still think it would be nice if the JPL team were to do us the courtesy of making at least some comment on what is the most likely candidate for a fossil that I've yet seen in the pictures from Mars.
If I were Dr. Squyres, I might be saying something like: "Yes, the shape of this particular section of rock could be interpreted as a fossil of some kind of crinoid-like organism. But, in view of the fact that it's the only section of rock with a plausible fossil-like shape in it, and it's such a small area, we can't make a judgment one way or the other. The probability is that it's just a peculiar rock formation. If we find another shape just like it, on the other hand, that will change the situation markedly. Don't worry, we're always looking and thinking and you'll be the first to know if we find definite proof of past life on Mars!"

In addition, I don't think NASA has endeared itself to the conspiracy brigade by RATing the fossil-candidate into oblivion. It was a most unfortunate place to use the RAT, of all the places it could have chosen, and has played into the hands of the 'cover-up' fanatics.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, since the accessibility of these missions to the general public has been outstanding, but I wonder whether it may have been a good PR exercise for NASA to employ a full-time geologist/front-man to prepare daily discussions of the MER findings?
The 'hit-rate' on the net for these landers has shown their immense popularity with the general public. It might have been sensible to 'keep the pot boiling' by keeping the public more included, by allowing us more access to the thought processes of the mission scientists.
The recent dearth of up-front communication has been a little frustrating, at least for me.
:bars:

Marineris Sauce · 2004-03-23 20:44:09

... I wonder whether it may have been a good PR exercise for NASA to employ a full-time geologist/front-man to prepare daily discussions of the MER findings?...

I suspect, at least initially, that's what the almost daily press conferences were for, amoung other considerations, considering that the mission news was so fresh at that time. The now weekly press conferences have been providing a thorough overview of what JPL/Nasa feels is necessary - anymore than that is probably considered 'overkill hypothisizing'. They are reporting the facts as they see them, as they are discovered. The rest of the world can take those facts and expound on them, or leave them. I'm not sure they have much time to concern themselves with the wild speculations. The careful conservative evaluations are as they should be - rigorous and scientific. No more, no less. The last thing any scientist wants to do in front of the cameras and the world's scientific community is have their reputations tarnished by jumping-the-gun on some half-baked educated guess or imaginative hunch, suspicion, gut instinct, etc.
(I mean, what would we, the speculating public have to do?!!)

...If we find another shape just like it, on the other hand, that will change the situation markedly...

Indeed! From what I'm given to understand, many 'commands' are issued at once and then executed by the rover team. It could be that the ratting of the 'crinoid-like' feature was accidental due to the timing between the upload/discovery of the object in the picture and the ratting execution. The idea that the whole of the Nasa/JPL/Mer leadership conspired to 'drill' the evidence out of public view is outrageously absurd. What are they going to do when, at Endurance crater, they find a three meter high outcrop with a few dozen similar formations sticking out of it? They gonna break the arm trying to drill these annoyances out of view? Or maybe they'll subject all the pictures to photoshop before releasing them to the public? After all, Universal Darwinism is a threat to the Bush administration...:;):

Sure it was unfortunate that this strange feature was ratted. But there must be others where that came from. Surely that wasn't the only one. Hoagland and the other 'cover-up fanatics' will continue to make their money with 'new findings'. Probability dictates that sooner or later a legitamate photo of a real fossil will turn up in these peoples hands, and I will wager anything that they will pounce on the opportunity to rub the emulsion off into Nasa's face, screaming "I told you so, I told you so!! I discovered it first!! I tried to tell them but they wouldn't listen to me!!". ...bullocks.

If the 'crinoid-like' feature was a legitimate fossil, and their are others, you can be rest assured that Nasa will do everything in their power to varify that discovery with solid, factual, scientifically irrefutable evidence.... and they won't make wild, outrageous assertions before a panel of the worlds best scientists are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Rxke · 2004-03-24 00:09:10

Believe it or not, but on the /. forum there were actually comments on the new conference like 'whattever happened to peer-review? Shouldn't they wait untill studies have been published before etc....'

On wich someone rightfully answered: aren't those articles just write-downs of *already* peer-reviewed work? JPL/NASA has a panel of scientist invited that have already peer-reviewed the stuff they talk about, there *will* be a lot of articles, later, with more details, they just bring out the most 'certain' peer-reviewed stuff NOW.

For wich I'm thankful.

Marineris Sauce · 2004-03-24 20:40:15

Thanks for that Rxke,
Haven't been there for a while. Interesting forum. Very little mincing with words, I like it. :up:

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Re: Broken spherele has dark spot inside it????

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