"Could the Meridiani Spherules be Surficial?" |
"Could the Meridiani Spherules be Surficial?" |
Jul 10 2007, 04:37 PM
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#1
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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 19 2007, 05:29 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 42 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 2646 |
Doug, Thanks for removing that off-topic post.
Regarding your post 34, Sorry I do not have all the time that I would like to have these days and just trying to read all the content pouring into Dr Burt's thread takes up much of it. You say that I do not "tackle any of the major issues", but I think that I am cutting to the heart of the matter. The spherules do not distort the bedding layers and are distributed in a way that shows no correlation with bedding layers or contacts in the rock. These are the key observations that have led the MER team to propose their concretion hypothesis. They strongly suggest that the spherules were not deposited along with the layered material. These two observations have forced the MER team to a concretion hypothesis that seems extraodinary to many and is a such a bad fit with Earth concretions that Dr. Burt can savage it at will. (Why the shape invariance, size limit, and distributions that in no way suggest growth from materials in moving ground water?) I give the MER team credit for continuing to take these two observations seriously. The impact spherule theory just ignores them. |
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Jul 19 2007, 05:47 PM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
but I think that I am cutting to the heart of the matter You're avoiding it. You couldn't be avoiding it more if you tried. You're avoiding the fundamental point of your theory.. how In light of all the evidence I've shown ( stalks, different surface elemental compositions, different spherule sizes and distributions, etc etc)... the only thing that could be considered the heart of the matter is... how? Until you tackle that issue - we're all wasting our time. Sorry to be so blunt about it - but that's the truth. Doug |
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