Simulations Show Liquid Water Could Exist on Mars / New Phoenix Lander results

bonzelite · Nov 25, 2005

psa, it is often stated in press releases, when speculating about the timeframe of the past water event, that it may have happened "45 million years ago." and this is evading the obvious to me. the fact that gullies have been seen to appear in 3 or 4 years or less disproves the fossilized mars theory. mars is not a totally fossilized shadow of itself. i must say that they have been getting bolder about admitting outright that it is liquid water. they are still reluctant to outright state that it is RIGHT NOW. to cover their reputations, as they may should in their positions professionally, they may not have the confidence to say anything 100% affirmative about hour by hour liquid water updates until they get radar telemetry or actual photographs from the surface capturing an actual liquid act.

JonClarke · Nov 25, 2005

Right........ <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

JonClarke · Nov 25, 2005

The gyserite spheres were a good suggestion (i.e. I wish I had thought of them), the reason why they, and other sedimentary grains (ooids, accretionary lapelli, impact spherules) were rejected as possibilities is that the distribution of the "blueberries" in the host rock does not match what you would expect from grains that form on the surface during sedimentation. They are not concentrated into beds, form sedimentary structures, and so on. instead their distribution matches what you would expect for concretions (typically scattered with only a crude assocation with bedding). They are also compositionally related to fracture fills and can be seen growing into cavities left behind by the dissolution of sulphate salts which themselves formed after the initial sedimentation. But I would be surprised, very surprised if we don't find gypserite spheres somewhere on Mars. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

JonClarke · Nov 25, 2005

I guess I don't see your problem. we know that water was common on Mars in the past for extended periods. We know, or strongly suspect, in flows on occasion now - the gullies show that. It's just that we have not seen it. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

bonzelite · Nov 25, 2005

then i guess there's no problem. they will not admit to liquid water until they have a quicktime video of it spewing out. that is what it will take to have it in print.

JonClarke · Nov 25, 2005

"Admit" is a very poor choice of words. people "admit" to a crime. People "admit" to having a drug problem. Using the word here implies you think the entire planetary science community knows that there is liquid water on Mars but won't "admit" it. As I have said repeatedly, there is a little matter of evidence. That is what separates the pratice of science from the sort of person who speculates on the internet for down the pub. Until we see liquid water, in the form of unabigious radar reflections, or real mud, or in the characteristic spectroscopic absorption, or a flowing stream or small pool we can't stay that there is liquid water on Mars now. We can say there is a lot of indirect evidence that it is present sometimes, we can say that the physical conditions do not preclude it, at least locally and episodically. But that is all. This does not mean we can't suggest or explore possibilities and implications. Scientists do this all the time. It's important to consider all possibilities and what they might mean. All the outcomes are interesting and important - episodic liquid water is interesting, no liquid water is also interesting. Remember there are rivers on earth that have not flowed in recorded history, some of the quebradas in the Atacama, for example. There is doubt they were formed by running water, there is no doubt that there will be water in them again at some stage. But you can't say they have water them now until you actually seem them flowing, something that has not happened in hundreds of years of observation. This is exactly the situation on Mars. I just don't understand why you find this so hard to accept and constantly imply you think Mars researchers are stupid or incompetent or cowards, or deliberately hiding the fact of liquid water on Mars. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

bonzelite · Nov 25, 2005

wow. catch your breath, man. they're not saying yay or nay about anything because they do not have absolute concrete proof. so they cannot say anything conclusive. they can speculate. and that is about it. they will not outright say there is liquid water NOW because if it is revealed to not hold true whatsoever, then whomever said it will be laughed out of their career. they are not stupid or incompetent. they are politically bound to shut up until they are absolutely certain of liquid water because to determine if water is there or not is well within reach very soon. it can be determined for REAL --either yes or no. this will be determined relatively soon with absolute certainty. be it in one year or 20. this is "soon." on other more nearly purely speculative things, they can propose far whackier ideas because they are less tenable and safe from being ever disproven. like super strings or big bangs. but water on mars poses a real threat to speculators. you go tooting your horn "yes, it is clear from the gullies that 100% liquid movement is happening regularly..." and you risk looking like a total fool if this is proven false. and it CAN and WILL BE proven true or false in a very short time from now. insofar as myself, i can toot the liquid water horn TODAY because it seems clearly obvious to me, even if looks are deceiving. i am not a scientist by trade or vocation, so i can sit back in my armchair distance and watch the fun. i have nothing to lose. but i think i am correct. as do many many others. and those who feel similarly to me are frustrated at how NASA will often go out on a big limb and say there are all of these exotic objects and phenomenon out there in the cosmos, yet fall short of such boldness when it comes to mars and it's present water condition that appears blatantly obvious. the thing is, if i am wrong and the gullies are made by some other means, then so be it. nobody will care or notic

jatslo · Nov 25, 2005

Pretty much the same thing I posted here. I got your back.

bonzelite · Nov 26, 2005

you get major props for your post in that thread. i love the title of the post, btw. LOL!! this is a very salient a point: "Those that hold onto majority, without offering alternatives, are fools and cowards. The risk takers are the ones who will move this world." --this is absolutely vital and true. from one risk-taker to another --my hat goes off to you, jatslo.

telfrow · Nov 26, 2005

professionals are not immune to mistakes or criticism Absolutely not. And I think Jon - or anyone else in this forum - would agree with that. The fact that everyone will make mistakes goes without saying. As for criticism, the question really lies in whether or not it is educated or uneducated criticism. If you are as fully educated and knowledgeable in the subject matter as the "professional" you're engaging in the debate, then you have every right - even a duty - to criticize their work or conclusions. If you have little or no formal education, background or knowledge in the field being debated - or even if you profess to be "self educated" in the field - the criticism is, at best, hollow and meaningless - and at worst, intellectually disingenuous. And if you lack that formal education, background or knowledge, how can you possibly justify calling the individuals in that field "fools and cowards" because their conclusions don't match yours? [BTW, that's your phrase, jatslo, not mine] So why does Jon get upset when someone like you, jatslo, et. al., fling those phrases around and criticize individuals who are formally educated professionals? Jon will never post this stuff, but here's why: Click on this link http://aca.mq.edu.au/People/jclarke.htm or Google "Jonathan Clarke Mars" and scan the hits. He is one. So when you toss around phrases like "fools and cowards," you're inferring he is one or both of them. So as a courtesy to a fellow board member, why not delete the references and stop using those types of phrases to "defend" your position? But let's set the record straight. Jon has the education, knowledge, background, experience, and credentials to make statements about the geology of, the possibility of water on, travel to, and survival on, Mars. I don't. (I <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

bonzelite · Nov 26, 2005

of course, this is the expected attack upon the "uneducated one." for that matter, then nearly 99% of everyone on SDC should be invalidated as well, as most members are lay-people who have a bit of knowledge about science overall but are not in professional positions in the science field. if you really read my post, you'd have all of your acerbic rhetorical questions pre-answered, as well as thoughts that illustrate my points. the irony here is that liquid water on mars TODAY is far more normal and prosaic an idea than is the big bang. but nobody seems to care about that beng taken as fact --a double-standard. i understand your defense of Jon. but i have nothing against the guy, personally. he's an asset to the forums. i've never had any issue with him really ever. the biggest loggerhead sessions have been with stevehw33 and i, but we have since mended fences. it's really not that big of a deal, really. we will know soon enough if liquid water is there right now or not. it may exist under conditions that seem unbelievable. but are there nonetheless. there's compelling recent visual evidence for it, certainly. we at least know that much.

telfrow · Nov 26, 2005

of course, this is the expected attack upon the "uneducated one." Nope. I included myself as being "uneducated" when it came to the subject - so if it's an attack on you, I attacked myself. You missed the point. All of the "lay people" here can enter into discussions with professionals - and disagree. We do it all the time. Jon and I disagreed a number of times in one of Fossil's old threads. But I never called him a "fool" or a "coward." It is a defense of Jon, motivated because of the use of those terms. If it sounds harsh, then so be it. Most of us have just about had it with the tactic. Using those terms is wholly unnecessary - it serves no purpose and does nothing to advance the debate. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

rlb2 · Nov 26, 2005

They are not concentrated into beds, form sedimentary structures, and so on. instead their distribution matches what you would expect for concretions (typically scattered with only a crude assocation with bedding). They are also compositionally related to fracture fills and can be seen growing into cavities left behind by the dissolution of sulphate salts which themselves formed after the initial sedimentation. Can that all be the results of over a billion years of freezing thawing from the migration of water ice, glaciers, from the poles as the rotational axis and eons of time changed you would find Spherules in sedimentary rocks. The current location of Meridian was not always on the equator. Under water ice - through compression, heat energy and vapor pressure water could develop even today at the poles on Mars. Once all that ice sublimates away it changes from a solid to a vapor and the saturated soil would start to boil away much like a geyser. Terrestrially the water at Yellowstone park, changes from a high pressure, several atm’s, to a low pressure, 1 atm to form the Geyser Beads - something similar may have occurred at Meridian from the oversaturated soil. This method may not have the heat energy that formed the sinters, like Yellowstone geysers, but had the same geyser affect helping to form them into spheres. Also note that the spherules have hematite caused by some water type interaction, thus the gray color. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

bonzelite · Nov 26, 2005

as i've said, i have nothing against Jon or even you. i apologize if you or Jon were insulted. i'm glad we're back on track.

rlb2 · Nov 26, 2005

Do you know when those gullies were photographed previously? That image was etched in my mind from years gone by; I will continue to look for it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

bonzelite · Nov 26, 2005

if this is what you speak of, try here: http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/mars.html scroll down to Sept 20, 2005. excerpt: "Sep 20, 2005 - Mars is a more dramatically changing place than scientists had ever imagined. Thanks to its long lifetime, the Mars Global Surveyor has spotted a gully coming down the side of a sand dune that didn't exist just three years ago. The gully could have formed when frozen carbon dioxide was suddenly warmed up enough that it evaporated, releasing gas that flowed downhill like a liquid. Mars Global Surveyor is still very healthy, and could be making observations 5-10 years from now." about the C02 idea: if it would have been essentially dry ice, i wonder if it would have not just have sublimated. if not, then the C02 could have been liquified. could this be plausible? can gas behave as a liquid, then, as the story suggests and flow downhill, creating rivulets? ----------- then there is this: http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/mars.html NASA Says Liquid Water Made Martian Gullies "Aug 25, 2005 - NASA scientists think they've developed a strong case that liquid water created the strange gullies discovered on Mars a few years ago. These gullies might indicate underground sites of water, and could be a good place to search for life. Although Mars' environment is too cold, dry and low pressure to support liquid water, it could last a little while as it escaped from an underground reservoir. The lack of debris fields at the ends of these gullies suggests the water froze or evaporated before it reached the bottom." the first story about the sand dune is more odd in that the gully begins at the crest of the dune, atop it. how would water get up there and then roll down? the second report is a

JonClarke · Nov 26, 2005

Good comment. the process you mention goes by the name of cryoturbation, and is common in permafrost terrains on earth, especially water/ice saturated environments. It really messes up primary textures. One would expect to find it on Mars, given the evidence of both ice and ice melting. Even if not currently active, possil examples should be found. However, the very well preserved parallel bedding and other primary depositional textures like cross bedding ripples, crystal casts, even possible tepee structures, all indicate this has not ocurred at Meridiani. These features would all have been obliterated (or strongly disturbed at the least) if cryoturbation had taken place. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

JonClarke · Nov 26, 2005

No offense taken. But, choose your word carefully, in the interest clear communication. A good way is to deal with the facts and ideas as much as possible, and not comment on the persons or their attributes, real or imagined, doing the work. Have you read William Hartmann's "A Traveller's Guide to Mars"? If not please do, I can't recommend it highly enough. It is very well written, profusely illustrated, well presented, reasonably priced, accessible to the informed layperson as well as the professional, and full of anecdotes from the author's lifetime of planteray research. I learned heaps from it. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

drwayne · Nov 26, 2005

"A good way is to deal with the facts and ideas as much as possible, and not comment on the persons or their attributes, real or imagined, doing the work." Well said, thank you. Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything." Admiral Jackie Fisher </div>

bonzelite · Nov 26, 2005

-noted and well heeded words. thank you again, jon.

bonzelite · Nov 27, 2005

so if i understand this correctly, cryoturbation is not a likely process, specifically for Meridiani dunes, in that such a process would have obliterated a great deal more sturctural integrity of the dune field itself, en masse, rather than create isolated rilles or gullies, yes? so if that is the case, then where does that leave us? back to the "gaseous CO2 acting as a liquid" idea?

rlb2 · Nov 27, 2005

However, the very well preserved parallel bedding and other primary depositional textures like cross bedding ripples, crystal casts, even possible tepee structures, all indicate this has not ocurred at Meridiani. These features would all have been obliterated (or strongly disturbed at the least) if cryoturbation had taken place. Good point - but I can see a type of alluvial briny effect that may explain that. If this cryoturbation took place before all the ice cover sheet evaporated away. Here’s how I can picture that. The surface layer of ice with its cryoturbation flows from the surface and ejects spherules to the top surface, the ice sublimates leaving salty evaporates behind more and more salts build-up to the point that mixed with the lower level of water ice combine to produce a hardy liquid goo, antifreeze. The watery brine remaining that was the direct cause of the evaporation process has a high specific gravity, more than the Spherules. Terrestrially speaking “The Great Salt Lake” in Utah is a good example, a human is buoyant in it and would have a hard time drowning. In other words the spherules may have become buoyant in a thin upper briny solution left over from the thaw. If this was the case, then the spherules would have floated above the thin layer of brine in Meridian. On earth this effect may resemble radishes floating in a vat of water if there are plenty of radishes then the top layer would have been full of buoyant radishes. Using the above analogy then a logical conclusion may be; as the water level receded in Meridian then the Spherules would have been more evenly distributed over its surface if they were buoyant. Another conclusion may be that the spherules became buoyant a short time then as the spherules became oversaturated with brine that filled its voids thus raising its specific gravity they then sank and was distributed more evenly over the surface. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

JonClarke · Nov 27, 2005

As I recall (by books on the subject are at work and I am too lazy to search the net) cryoturbation happens when water saturated material freezes and thaws. The varying pore water pressures and mixtures of coherent frozen and water saturated material moves round, making a mess of any original structures. The net result is that the land surface tends to get smoothed out. It might be worth doing a google search, if you are interested. such processes are vital in civil engineering projects at high latitudes in many countries. The very sharp, crisp appearence of the modern dunes at Meridiani argues against such processes operating there. One would expect them to be slooth with perhaps slumps on their flanks, more than we see (dry sand can also avlalanche, one one seen at the Viking 1 site during the period of oberation). It's worth noting that dunes of themselves are not likely to be good sides for cryoturbation, Most sands are too permeable to be saturated right they way through with the water necessary for this to happen. If, however, the sand is interbedded with snow, then cryoturbation becomes possible, along with a whole lot of other effects. Snow layers in dunes may explain the gullies in polar dunes, along with other effects such as over steepened faces, even cornices, even vanishing boulders. Mary Bourke (PSI) and Jennifer Heldmann (Ames) are just two researchers working on these questions. One problem is that dunes are rare in terrestrial cold deserts, making finding terrestrial analogues difficult. Those that do exist have been studied to a very limited degree. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

JonClarke · Nov 27, 2005

That's one complicated mechanism! Occam's razor suggests we look for simpler explanations first. Sometimes in geology it is the complicated one that is right. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> The main problem I have with this is two fold. Brines, even super saturated ones, are always less dense than minerals. You do get rafts of floating crystals in salt lakes, but that is due to surface tension, not bouyancy. So the blueberries would never have floaded (haematite is quite dense as minerals go, a haematite concretion will have a density of about 4-5 times water, depending on purity. The other is that texturally the haematite comes later, it fills cavities left by the dissolving of the earlier sulphate, and also as fractures. So it points to events during burial, not sedimentation, migrating groundwater, not surface water, or groundwater discharging as springs. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

rlb2 · Nov 27, 2005

The main problem I have with this is two fold. Brines, even super saturated ones, are always less dense than minerals. Its all relative. If you go strictly by pure iron that is in hematite then your right but: Earth's specific gravity of some minerals The specific gravity for brine is 1.21 at 25 C which has a concentration of 22.4% actual calcium chloride at freezing point of -94ºF (-23ºC) in one atm. Heavy density brine comprising CaCl2 and Ca(NO3 )2 = Specific gravity up to 1.65 with crystallization point below -15°C. The colder it gets the larger the specific gravity. Water = 1.000 Saltwater =1.025 Iron sulfate = 1.200 Ammonium Sulphate = 1.130 Pure iron = 7.850 These are only examples of some brine makeup, the minerals mass, Martian gravity, temperature etc. will determine the specifc gravity on Mars. Remember a lot of the minerals found on Mars is high in oxygen, none of them are made out of pure elements. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

Simulations Show Liquid Water Could Exist on Mars / New Phoenix Lander results

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