MARS DUNES OR MEGA LIFE?
Part-1
Report #125
September 1, 2007
This multi-part reporting will attempt to deal with a subject that really cannot be dealt with adequately in a short reporting style like this. To do this adequately would require great volumes of text and far too many images to be practical and even then may still wind up being a bit too inconclusive. Even so, I'm going to risk sticking my neck out and make a stab at this to at least alert viewers to the possibilities. So gear your expectations accordingly and don't expect too much. Consider it merely pointing the way for others to one day follow through on. We'll start off here in Part-1 by getting some brief reminder exposure to a mix of Earth based sand dunes in the following five images.
Courtesy: www.widerange.org
.........................Great
Sand Dunes, Colorado..............................1st of 18th
images
Courtesy: www.photosbyjoyce.net
....................Great Sand
Dunes, Colorado, USA.....................2nd of 18 images
Courtesy: www.ersdac.or.jp..........................Rub
Al Khali Desert, Saudi Arabia......................... 3rd of
18 images
Courtesy:
www.ersdac.or.jp........................Rub
Al Khali Desert, Saudi Arabia............................ 4th
of 18 images
Courtesy: www.agnld.uni-potsdam.de
................Close view of
dune ripple patterns....................5th of 18 images
The above are just a few representative samples of EARTH sand dunes. They do not represent all the different looks of Earth dunes but serve as a very basic reminder of what a few sand dunes look like here on Earth from different view perspectives. The Earth dunes you see above have been sculpted into their shapes by wind forces blowing loose solid particulate around. However, keep in mind that water flowing forces as well can create these as well as other different looks and that these shapes can in the right conditions also survive from more ancient times into the present after the water flow presence is long gone.
So how does this relate to evidence on Mars? The official position appears to be to label everything that has even a "maybe" resemblance to a dune look as a "dune" implying that it is a sand dune. This stratagem of course reinforces the perception of Mars as a super dry barren world full of dust and no life. As I see it, this appears to be in part a consistent strategy of preemptive misdirection that warns scientists and others that this evidence has been properly identified by those "in the know" and don't presume to try to oppose this interpretive view. Further, it appears to be a very effective tactic because many scientists and journalist just seem to blindly jump on this band wagon and go on and on about the sand dunes on Mars even if they do sometimes look mighty strange in appearance.
Alternatively, as some of you know, my reporting has on occasion revealed that not everything on Mars that has a dune looking shape is inanimate sand dune geology but appears to be life of some unknown kind. In some cases, this is more obvious once different factors get pointed out and start coming into awareness but in other cases the evidence isn't that obvious and remains interpretive. Some of the evidence you will see here in this reporting may fit more into the latter category.
There are indeed a lot of accumulations of loose solid particulate granular geology (sand/soil) on Mars that would qualify as dunes as we normally think of them to be. It is to be expected. After all, Mars is primarily a land surface world as compared to Earth's primarily water world with 70% water coverage. For example, despite Earth as a planet being larger than the red planet, Mars has just about as much exposed land surface area as Earth. So on Mars it can be anticipated that rock and soil geology is going to be a major player even without the presence of the super dry barren interpretation tactic.
In some of my earlier reporting, I've indicated that some of these "dune" looking objects are not that at all but some form of living organic matter. Then in my more recent reporting, I've suggested that something else other than geology is going on with "dunes" in the North Polar Region. These dunes, unlike the Earth accumulation dunes you see above, are normally individual objects as opposed to accumulations of loose material that can be round, oblong, crescent shaped (barchan), strung out in linear lines, and often aerodynamic shaped. They do share some of the looks of sand dunes but in other ways are quite different and unique.
They exist in fields of only a few to great numbers of these very obviously individual objects. When in great numbers and getting larger in size and densely packed close to each other, they can completely cover the terrain hiding it from view. In such a scenario, they can also look very similar to the dune fields we are familiar with and this is one reason why the officially promoted "dune" moniker sticks to them so well. However, looking at many images of this evidence and with closer examination will reveal that they are still individual objects just packed tightly together.
I must tell you up front that I suspect that soil constitutes a large part of these objects but that something else living but unknown to us transforms the soil/sand content into a cohesive pliable mass and animates this material. Not only that, if that isn't unbelievable and fantastic enough for you, I suspect that a mega form of this life exists in the North Polar Region along with more natural dune geology. In fact, that is the subject of this reporting and the following Part-2 and Part-3 will explore this possibility further.
