"Could the Meridiani Spherules be Surficial?" |
"Could the Meridiani Spherules be Surficial?" |
Jul 10 2007, 04:37 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 42 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 2646 |
I have been reading the response to the reponse to impact-surge linked by Dr Burt in post 170. The MER team objects to the impact-spherule explanation because " The spherules are dispersed nearly uniformly across all strata." I agree that is a valid criticism. It is very much like Dr. Burt's criticism of the MER team's hypothesis, that spherule distributions are not consistent with any conceivable ground-water movement regime that should have controled the development of concretions. I agree strongly with this point of Dr. Burt's as well. Neither theory does a good job of explaining the distribution of the spherules. Also, neither theory does a good job of explaining why the spherules do not apparently disturb the bedding.
There may be a solution in a possibilty that I now raise with some trepidation. I think that there is a chance that the spherules are superficial, and not an integral part of the Meridiani strata at all. This probably sounds crazy to many readers, but before rejecting it outright remember that science is at kind of an impasse on this and could use a new idea. If the spherules are superficial this would explain a number of puzzling observations. The layering at Homeplate and Meridiani is most simply explained by impact-surge. It is elegantly and inescapably explained by impact-surge. The impact-surge authors have also tried to explain the Meridiani spherules as part an impact event. If doubts are raised that the spherules are integral to the deposit, this would not in any way be inconsistent with the impact-surge origin of the layered structure. On the contrary, an objection to impact surge would be removed. I intend to start another thread under Opportunity to discuss this question. The first posting should be mine and should be an organized outline of how it might be possible that the spherules have been mis-interpreted as part of the Meridiani layered deposit. I am working on it. If anyone wants to start in on me with the obvious objections, do it here for now. Maybe Dr. Burt would like to respond. No matter what the details of spherule formation in an impact or spherule deposition in the impact sediments, the very uniform distributions that we see are troublingly unlikely. Random distributions are possible from explosive dispersal but less likely than some kind of clustering because of the rapidly changing conditions in the surge cloud. The more-uniform-than-random distributions of spherules on rock characterised by MER-team analysis cannot be explained by impact surge. |
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Jul 17 2007, 03:29 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 562 Joined: 29-March 05 Member No.: 221 |
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were on a train heading north, and had just crossed the border into Scotland.
* The engineer looked out of the window and said "Look! Scottish sheep are black!" * The physicist said, "No, no. Some Scottish sheep are black." * The mathematician looked irritated. "There is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black." |
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Jul 19 2007, 10:46 PM
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were on a train heading north, and had just crossed the border into Scotland. * The engineer looked out of the window and said "Look! Scottish sheep are black!" * The physicist said, "No, no. Some Scottish sheep are black." * The mathematician looked irritated. "There is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black." The conversation was overheard in a neighbouring carriage, by a member of UMSF and an ESA scientist, both travelling to a conference in Edinburgh. "I want pictures of those sheep! Now!" said the UMSFer impatiently, booting up his laptop ready to attack the sheep images with Photoshop, eager to enhance the colour and texture of every strand of wool on their bodies. "I have the pictures here," smiled the ESA scientist, looking at his own laptop, before adding "but I'm not showing them to anyone else..." and flipping the screen down. -------------------- |
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