Hydrated minerals map, MEx uncovers possible sites for life Options

[ElkGroveDan]

Why, oh why, do the Europeans insist on making an exception when it comes to billions????

It's kind of like the French calling seventy, sixty-ten (soixante-dix ) or eighty, four twenties (quatre-vingts). It's just cultural and linguistic tradition. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[edstrick]

Chris: "...It just sounded right. (and I'm still not quite sure what a gazillion is ).

Gadzillion, similar to buh'zillion. 1, followed by a "sufficient" number of: ",000"'s

How many is "One Sagan"?

Billions and Billions!

What is the S.I. unit of Beauty? One mili-Helen. The face of Helen was sufficient to launch a thousand ships, according to homer. One milihelen is sufficient beauty to launch one ship.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

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Ah, at last a rational definition of beauty.

Now is just lacking a convertion from the Helen beauty unit to bucks, for indemnities in divorce cases .

And if an Helen was to launch a ship, a wooden old dromon, how many Helen to launch a spaceship to Mars? Perhaps it is much less expensive than with rockets

[Bob Shaw]

A side trip into etymology.

"Phyllo_sian" has to do with phyllosilicates (clays).

"Sider_ikian" has to do with iron.

But I've dug around and can't find the root for "thei-ikian". Any ideas?

--Bill

Bill:

From Spaceflight Now:

"The eras are named after the Greek words for the predominant minerals formed within them. The one most likely to have supported life was the phyllosian, when clay beds could have formed at the bottom of lakes and seas, providing the damp conditions in which the processes of life could begin."


Bob Shaw

[remcook]

apparently, it means sulfur.

[Bob Shaw]

Possible link between 2 threads?? Latest ESA press release image caption reads "The hydrated minerals are not found in the channel as one would expect but in the eroded flanks and cratered plateau" this taken togethert with recent posts in 'Europa's subsurface ocean' suggest the following scenario:

1. Clay sediments are formed on Martian ocean bed. 2. Ocean freezes, but channels are eroded though the sediments by sub-glacial rivers. 3. Frozen ocean sublimes away leaving surface exposed to cratering.

What say the experts?

Ngunn:

I dunno about the experts, but that sounds very credible to me! A good, simple, explanation for an observed phenomenon...

Bob Shaw

[tty]

But I've dug around and can't find the root for "thei-ikian". Any ideas?

Greek 'theion' = sulfur

tty

[RNeuhaus]

Every three digits, the convention calls for the numbering identifier to change. Why, oh why, do the Europeans insist on making an exception when it comes to billions????

Not only European insists but also all latin america countries follow the same metric nomeclature. I don't know what is the metric for Southeast of Asia and Africa.
1 one
10 ten
100 one hundred
1,000 one thousand
10,000 ten thousands
100,000 one hundred thousands
1,000,000 one million
10,000,000 ten millions
100,000,000 one hundred millions
1,000,000,000 one thousand millions
10,000,000,000 ten thousand millions
100,000,000,000 one hundred thousand millions
1,000,000,000,000 one billion (thousand thousand millions)

In Spanish we call:
Millon = 10^6
Milliardo = 10^9
Billion = 10^12
Billiardo = 10^15
Trillion = 10^18
Trilliardo = 10^21

Rodolfo

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

On looking again at the map of the very small patches of different hydrated minerals found on Mars by OMEGA, I still think the OMEGA team may be wrong in saying that the sulfates were caused by an actual increase in Mars' volcanic activity during the Hesperian period.

Benton Clark's view, by contrast, has been that Mars' generally stronger volcanism during its earliest days -- combined with the fact that its lack of an ozone layer allowed solar UV light to penetrate all the way to the surface -- caused sulfuric acid to form all over early Mars' surface. In its earliest Noachian days, however, there could be a lot of phyllosilicate clays produced by nonacid water simply because the planet had a lot more liquid water in general all over its surface and so the acid was highly diluted. But during the Hesperian -- at which point Mars' initial dense atmosphere had vanished -- the planet's surface had become so cold that non-acid water could no longer be liquid there, making it possible for water to be liquid on the surface only where it was mixed with a lot of H2SO4 as antifreeze.

The OMEGA map does show the small dots of phyllosilicates to be sprinkled pretty randomly all over the planet, while the sulfate deposits are concentrated entirely around the Valles Marineris and the Meriaiani drainage area at its east end -- but this distribution also fits Clark's alternative model well, since by then most of Mars' remaining volcanic activity unquestionably WAS in the Tharsis region, regardless of whether or not it was actually stronger then than Mars' volcanism had been during the Noachian.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/312/5772/400 (Figure 3)

[dvandorn]

...Benton Clark's view, by contrast, has been that Mars' generally stronger volcanism during its earliest days -- combined with the fact that its lack of an ozone layer allowed solar UV light to penetrate all the way to the surface -- caused sulfuric acid to form all over early Mars' surface...

Ah, but the lack of an early Martian ozone layer is an assumption. Just as is the lack of an early Martian magnetic field. The latter seems to be on really thin ice -- I think we need to question the former assumption, as well.

-the other Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

No, it's not. To build up a strong ozone layer, you need LOTS of molecular oxygen in the air. Earth didn't have that either, until photosynthesis came along. (Until then, Earth's sizable supply of bacteria had to hide in the depths, and reproduce at a high enough rate that it could outstrip the part of their population that died when it drifted to the surface of the water.)

Granted that when a planet is losing its water to UV photolysis at a high rate, it can get a modest amount of O2 in the air, and thus build up a rather weak ozone layer, (Venus, because of its initial warmth lofting so much of its water vapor into the atmosphere, may perhaps have lost its water this way so fast that its ozone layer was actually, if briefly, rather impressive.) But any such Martian O3 layer would also have vanished when most of its water was lost either to photolysis or to freezing solid in the subsurface, which had certainly happened by the time of the Hesperian. (Come to think, of it, that's one reason why overall atmospheric production of sulfuric acid MIGHT have increased in the Hesperian, separately from the OMEGA team's suggestion that the planet's overall volcanic activity was actually stronger then.)

[nprev]

Sorry to interject an elementary question here, but could someone please post a quick summary of Martian geological epochs vs. years BP for reference? I am utterly lost with respect to the eras cited in this discussion, and I suspect that other readers would also appreciate the reference. Thanks!

[SigurRosFan]

Sorry to interject an elementary question here, but could someone please post a quick summary of Martian geological epochs vs. years BP for reference? I am utterly lost with respect to the eras cited in this discussion, and I suspect that other readers would also appreciate the reference. Thanks!

Look on post #24 and scroll down to fig. 5.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Actually, that figure does not list the estimated years of the Noachian, Hesperian and Amazonian periods -- which are admittedly still pretty vague (they're based on estimates of cratering rates, and the Hesperian/Amazonian transition date in particular is extremely uncertain). One table can be found at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1843.pdf (Fig. 1). A clearer summary is at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/MarsACh04.pdf .

[nprev]

Thanks to you both, gentlemen; that was most helpful!

Clearly, we need to find some index fossils in order to resolve era boundaries more effectively...

Of course, index geochemical/geophysical events may well be the best we'll ever do. By any chance, will MSL have an instrument designed to measure critical isotope ratios for dating purposes?