"Could the Meridiani Spherules be Surficial?" Options

[Kye Goodwin]

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.

[Kye Goodwin]

Doug, re your post 41, Yen is referring to the surface environment in that paper in the sense that the activity he describes must be within the diurnal thermal skin depth which is generally agreed to be no more than a few centimeters. The water from frost that he suggests as an agent of chemical weathering falls on the surface each night and the heat that moves it around comes from the sun shining on the surface. I include the top few centimeters in what I am calling the surface environment.

Aussie re your 42, There are many ways to work on this problem besides starting with a detailed chemical model. Were science to become convinced that hematite spherules have formed on the surface then chemists would soon find models to explain how it might have happened. The necessary reagents are plausibly present and other aqueously catalysed processes are probably happening in the same environment. I can't yet explain why spheres would be the result, but as Dr Burt has pointed out, the MER team concretion theory does not explain the sphericity either. I'm afraid that the impact-spherule idea is the only theory so far that can explain the sphericity.

It occurs to me that I should try to find out more about the non-spherule instances of hematite that have turned up at Gusev. One was a possible hematite coating on Mazatzal (see the first Yen paper in my post 40), the second was Pot-o-gold, and the third was Halley at Low Ridge. Do we know enough about any of these to say if the hematite was in the grey or red form?

[djellison]

You've had ten days to bring some sound science to your theory - and have avoided or found it impossible to do so. You've repeatedly avoided ignored the difficult issues around it.

I'm going to take a leaf out of the BAUT rule book and put a time limit on this thread. I'll give it 5 more days – and then close it. Long enough for you to bring some science to it if you're ever going to, but short enough so we can all stop wasting our time if you're not.

If you're looking for somewhere to carry on talking about it thereafter, I would highly recommend the BAUT forum - as it's exceptionally tolerant of theories that are against the mainstream, but within well established rules.

Doug