Space Forum / Shuttle / November 2005

Well then the folks at Cal Tech and JPL are delusional too
when they wrote this about the spheres....

"In summary, simple nucleation controlled growth will form clumps
or bands of cement not spheroids Spheroidal nodular concretions
on Earth result from spherical  diffusion of products of diagenetic
reactions involving organics"
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/2148.pdf

You just think I'm nuts because I've been calling the spheres
life since two weeks after Opportunity landed. And bacterial concretions
since June 04, almost a year before the above paper was released.
And the whole sponge gemmule thingy, well, I'm not embarrassed
by that mistake, quite the opposite. A sponge gemmule is the
reproductive pod of the very first and simplest two celled metazoan.
Such a reproductive pod should take on the form of the life from
which it evolved. Which would be bacteria.
A bacterial concretion and a sponge gemmule should be
quite alike. In fact I believe the two are just one tick
from each other on the evolutionary path. Which means
a gemmule would be as close to correct as possible, without
being correct.

Missed by ...that much. (holding fingers closely together)

Sphere
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/028/1M130671782EFF0454P2953M2M1.HTML
Gemmule
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plfeb96.htm#gemmules

Here's a post of mine below from a year and a half ago. It's pretty
much the same one I'm posting now, except now I can include recent
research that supports the same conclusions. You just can't believe
someone without a clue about geology, chemistry or biology can
figure it out it faster then the pros.    But I had the advantage
on them, complexity science, it's that good. It teaches you
how to figure things out quickly, and across all disciplines.

Dynamics of complex systems, full online text.
http://www.necsi.org/publications/dcs/
......................................................................................
............

Friday, June 04, 2004

The  Stromatalites of Stella Maris, Bahamas
http://www.theflyingcircus.com/stella_maris.html

Endurance Crater
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/n/111/1N138039382EFF2600P1986R0M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/n/119/1N138744629EFF2809P1987R0M1.JPG

Microbolites in the Geologic Record

"Whereas internal morphology indicates the accretionary nature of stromatolite
growth,the external morphology of stromatolites can be used to infer hydrological
conditions
in the environment in which the stromatolites grew. For instance, in still-water
environments, stromatolites will approximate a flat sheet, while in more turbulent
environments the stromatolites will consist of interlinked domes or columns, with
flat, linking mats between them."
http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/newstrom.htm

Introduction

"At all scales of observation, problems often arise when trying
to distinguish between biological and inorganic features in the ancient
rock record. Stromatolites, defined as laminated biosedimentary fabrics
formed by the trapping and binding of sediments and/or
precipitation of minerals by microorganisms (Walter 1977),
are sometimes impossible to distinguish from finely laminated sediments
formed by inorganic processes"
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/taphon.pdf

Endurance finely layered rock
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/123/1P139114820EFF2815P2532R1M1.JPG

Opportunity microscopic images
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/105/1M137503553EFF2208P2956M2M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/106/1M137593860EFF2208P2956M2M1.JPG

Lamination as a tool for distinguishing microbial and metazoan
biosystems from inert structures

"Conclusion:
Lamination often indicates the presence of microbial or microbially
dominated biosystems. Furthermore, laminated structures are an
important borderline to distinguish micro and macroorganisms, although
such a distinction is relative. Both the presence and absence of
lamination are lawful phenomena based on the fundamental physical and
biological/biogeochemical principles."
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/scholz.pdf

Morphological Biosignatures and the Search for Life on Mars

"Determining the location of potential paleobiological repositories
on Mars requires an understanding of the martian surface in
terms of elemental abundances and mineralogy. This variety
of hematite on Earth forms only in the presence of large amounts of
water, and typically at elevated (hydrothermal) temperatures
(Christensen et al., 2000)."
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/morpho.pdf

Hydrothermal Systems:
Doorways to Early Biosphere Evolution

ABSTRACT
"Hydrothermal systems may have provided favorable
environments for the prebiotic synthesis of
organic compounds necessary for life and may also
have been a site for life's origin . They could also have
provided a refuge for thermophilic (heat-loving)
microorganisms during late, giant-impact events.
Phylogenetic information encoded in the genomes of
extant thermophiles provides important clues about
this early period of biosphere development that are
broadly consistent with geological evidence for Archean
environments . Hydrothermal environments often
exhibit high rates of mineralization, which favors
microbial fossilization."
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/gsa.pdf

The State and Future of Mars Polar Science and Exploration

"The recent identification of putative shorelines in the northern plains
suggests that the water from these events may have contributed to one or
more ice-covered lakes or seas that may have collectively covered as
much as a third of the planet . These, and other lines of evidence, suggest
that Mars is water-rich and may store the equivalent of a global
ocean of water » 0.5-1 km deep as ground ice and
groundwater within its crust (Carr 1987)."

"Whether the early climate was warm or cold, the presence of
abundant water on the surface has profound implications for the
development of life. Indeed, given the intense impact and volcanic
activity that characterized the planet at this time, the development
of long-lived hydrothermal systems was likely widespread-
duplicating many of the important conditions that are thought
to have given rise to life on Earth (Farmer 1996)."
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/marspolarsci.pdf

Morphological Biosignatures and the Search
for Life on Mars

"In microbial communities, organisms exist in a common
EPS ("slime") matrix. These materials hold great taphonomic
importance because they can control aspects of the chemical
microenvironments that promote early diagenetic mineralization,
a key factor in microbial fossilization (Farmer, 1999). EPS
is known to bind a wide variety of metals in-
cluding Pb, Sr, Zn, Cd, Co, Cu, Mn, Mg, Fe, Ag,
and Ni (Decho, 1990, and references therein)."

"The concentration of these metals above background
levels presents an interesting possibility for the
detection of organisms even after organic mate-
rials have been degraded (Farmer, 1999; Conrad
and Nealson, 2001)."
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/morpho.pdf

TAPHONOMIC MODES IN MICROBIAL FOSSILIZATION

"In conjunction with other types of chemofossil evidence (e.g., isotopes and organic
biomarker compounds), spatial distributions of trace metals that are comparable
in pattern and scale to microbial cells and biofilms may provide additional
evidence for biogenicity . And through an improved understanding of the
varied role(s) played by trase elements in modern microbial processes, we
may eventually be able to extract paleobiological information from rocks
even where primary organic materials have been completely
degraded and lost."

A Mossbauer investigation of iron-rich terrestrial
hydrothermal vent systems: Lessons for Mars exploration

"While a high-temperature origin for terrestrial life is still
debatable, the high biological productivity and rapid
mineralization that are typical of thermal spring environments
make them particularly favorable places for the preservation
of a microbial fossil record. For this reason, hydrothermal
deposits are regarded as important targets in the exploration
for fossil evidence of ancient Martian life"

"Among the stated capabilities of the Mossbauer instrument is the
ability to detect "nanophase and amorphous hydrothermal Fe
minerals that could preserve biological materials" (S.W. Squyres,
http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/athena/mossbauer.html, 1998a).
Terrestrial hydrothermal springs, including deep-sea vents,
harbor complex ecosystems that have evolved based on nutri-
ents and energy supplied by the vent effluent. Importantly,
land-based spring systems also include photosynthetic (cya-
nobacterial) species. Previously, we reported results of a
Mossbauer investigation of samples (collected by J. C. Alt)
from submarine hydrothermal vents ("black smokers") in an
area of the East Pacific Rise [Agresti et al., 19941. The iron-
rich minerals were shown by scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) to be associated with bacterial filaments [Alt, 19881."
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/mossbauer.pdf

4. Siderite as a Component of an Ancient Stromatolite

"Mossbauer spectra at two temperatures of a freshly slabbed
portion of a 2.09 Ga (Early Proterozoic) hematic chert stro-
matolite from the Gunflint Iron Formation (PPRG 2443) are
shown in Figure 26. The high-velocity ferrous peak migrates
from its position at 100 K to overlap the fifth peak of hematite
at 19 K. This behavior and the agreement of the splitting pa-
rameters with those of siderite argue that this sample contains
a small fraction of siderite. (dominant siderite peak at -1090 cm-I).
The sample investigated was freshly slabbed for the Mossbauer
transmission measurement, so the iron carbonate is interior
to the native stromatolite rock. Its occurrence in this 2.09 Ga
old rock in- dicates that long (billion-year) survival times
for siderite are possible when preserved in silica."

(Fig 26 page 15,  please compare with blueberry bowl
 chart for siderite signature)
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/mossbauer.pdf

A Bowl of Hematite-Rich 'Berries'
Mar 18, 2004

"This graph shows two spectra of outcrop regions near the
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site.
The blue line shows data for a region dubbed "Berry Bowl,"
which contains a handful of the sphere-like grains dubbed
"blueberries."

Blueberry chart
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-images/mar-18-2004/captions/image-19.html

GROUNDWATER-FED IRON-RICH MICROBIAL MATS IN A FRESHWATER
CREEK: GROWTH CYCLES AND FOSSILIZATION POTENTIAL OF
MICROBIAL FEATURES.

"It is this common association of microbes and iron
deposition on earth that has spurred hopes that robot
crafts exploring the hematite anomaly of Mars' Meridiani
Planum might find evidence for ancient life. The
hematite deposits of Meridiani Planum [7], regardless of
their exact origin, are considered to be a favorable host
for microorganisms that might have been associated
with their formation [8]."
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1369.pdf

NASA-JPL May Have Cooked Their Own Goose!

"To make a long story short (I shall over-simplify for sake of
brevity), there is increasing evidence of the function of
bacteria in rock-forming and even in some sand-forming processes
(wherein bacteria serve to nucleate the growth of small silicate
crystals). On Earth, in formation of spherical concretions,
bacterial colonies and/or other organic matter infused with
bacteria nucleate crystalline silica growth. I suspect it would
likewise be the case where Mars was wet over extended periods."

"In the wet, mushy or 'muddy' environment, the resulting micro-
concretion slowly grows (sometimes incorporating or
encapsulating adjacent grains of silt or sand, sometimes simply
by crystalline growth from colloidally suspended silica
crystallizing and pushing adjacent silt ahead of its growth,
sometimes by a combination of the two processes), increasing its
diameter spherically across time. If conditions for the
bacterial colony's growth are episodic, one can sometimes see
(upon slicing the concretion) rather distinct concentric layers
of growth that formed the concretion, but where conditions for
growth are constant, the concretion may show a crystalline
pattern with virtually no concentric layering."
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2004/mar/m03-035.shtml

..................................

There are abundant locations on Mars to search for water, but
hematite further reduces the search to areas likely to have
underground water or hot springs. And to areas showing ideal
conditions for life and fossil preservation.

They have found everything they could have expected at
Meridiani. The Big Clue is that the hematite is concentrated
in the spheres, yet little is in the soil.

The question now is whether Nasa is simply being
conservative by dramatically downplaying the
capabilities and discoveries of this mission. Or
if they are willing to let the mission end as is
as a hedge to insure the coveted sample
return mission.

For Nasa to hide the discovery of extraterrestrial life
would be the  'Biggest Lie'  in the history of science!
Galileo v. The Holy Inquisition would be a minor
travesty in comparison. Such infamous history
should not be allowed to repeat itself.

Nasa should not be allowed to have a Vatican-like grip
on such ...universal... Discovery.

Contrary to popular opinion, we still live in the
Dark Ages.

Jonathan

s

The ISS science mission has been changed to study long
duration space flight. The whole microgravity thingy
that was supposed to change the world has been abandoned..
And since the station is in the wrong orbit, it can't support the
missions to the Moon or Mars.

I guess they should've thought out the reasons for
building it a bit better eh? Instead of just building it
and figuring the purpose will be found ....later.

Kinda like what we're doing now with the whole
to the Moon and Mars goal.. If we build it 'they' will come. "
They" being a purpose for the whole effort.

Pity history is repeating itself....aint it?
Oh well, it's just another twenty years and a
few hundred billion down the tubes.

No biggee.

Jonathan

s