From: Paul Anderson <psa@direct.ca>
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 15:55:07 -0700
Fwd Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 01:21:59 -0400
Subject: Eras News: 04-04-01


ERAS NEWS
The E-News Service of The Eras Project

http://www.geocities.com/erasproject

April 4, 2001

____________________________


The Eras Project: The Mars Initiative

THE 'FORESTS OF MARS': BIOLOGY OR EXOTIC GEOLOGY?

by Paul Anderson

April 4, 2001


Web version of this report with correlating images:
http://www.geocities.com/erasproject/marsforest.html


The thousands of images returned by the Mars Global Surveyor and
previous probes to the Red Planet have yielded many anomalous
features over the years, some of which are possibly indicative
of abundant water and even life, either past or present.

Recently, some new images have come to light, courtesy of Graham
Orme, taken by MGS in 2000 near the Martian south pole, of more
unusual landforms which for all the world look like large-scale
vegetation of some sort or possibly ancient coral as has also
been suggested. Is this really evidence of macro life, past or
present, or just another form of unusual geology, which Mars is
becoming known for (remembering that while Mars is the closest
planetary equivalent ot Earth in our solar system, along with
Europa, it is still _not_ the Earth). If 'plant life', it would
appear to be more of a ground-covering variety, albeit
large-scale, than a 'forest of trees' per se, but the images are
provocative nonetheless. Or could we be looking at the remains
of Martian coral reefs? Shadowing in the images does reveal the
formations to apparently have some relative height. The radial
'branching' from the centre outward in each 'bush' is of
particular interest, giving these objects their distinct
plant-like appearance. Coral reefs on Earth, such as off the
coast of Australia, can show a similar transition, from isolated
"islands" of coral to a denser, continuous bed. Other
possibilities which TEP/TMI is looking into include something
akin to seagrass beds (some species of which have been found
fossilized, dating back to the late Cretaceous period) or even
Mangrove forests on Earth. One aspect of seagrass plants is the
extensive underground root / rhizome system which anchors them
to their substrate. Perhaps a similar fossilized system could
become exposed over time?

One aspect of these formations to be considered is size. The
original NASA scaled image posted on the MSSS web site is
approximately 2.83 km by 20.46 km in size, making the one large
'bush' near the top left hand corner of the picture
approximately one-third of the width, or .94 km across (.6 miles
or 3,168 feet). Single plants of this size are hard to imagine
perhaps, making the 'coral' analogy more likely, composed of
many individual plants spread out over a larger area, _if_ these
formations are biology related. On Earth, seagrass beds can
cover large areas, up to a few thousand square km, as can coral,
etc. Of course, anything akin to  fossilized remains of seagrass
or coral would imply there was a standing ocean of water at some
point in the past, of which there is other growing evidence in
recent years from the MGS and other probes. These analogies are
put out simply as possibilities, for others to follow up on.

Other examples of possible Martian vegetation have been found
before, including patches on sand dunes and in craters, etc.
which look very much like large fungal-type colonies or smaller
bushes (see Mac Tonnies' Cydonian Imperative web site below for
additional reports on these), and even greenish coloured patches
on the rocks near the Viking 1 lander in 1976 which changed
pattern and colour during each Martian year as documented by
Gilbert Levin of Biospherics.

These photographs are among those reportedly referenced by
Arthur C. Clarke in recent weeks as possible evidence of
'large-scale life on Mars' (see articles listed below). Such
features may indeed have 'normal', albeit distinctly Martian,
geological explanations as NASA insists. Only additional,
high-resolution photographs of these and similar landforms or a
landing in these areas will answer these questions (Malin, are
you listening?).

Original  NASA / MSSS images:

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/images/M08/M0804688.html
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/nonmaps/M08/M0804688.gif


Related articles / web sites:

Clarke's Believe it or Not
http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/clarke_believe_010227.html

How I helped to Save Star Trek: It Turned Out to Forecast our Future
http://www.times-archive.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/09/16/timopnope01001.html

Sir Arthur C. Clarke Cracks The Tip of the Mars Iceberg
http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/March2001/29MAR01a1/29mar01a1.htm

The Cydonian Imperative: Vegetation on Mars?
http://www.geocities.com/macbot/cydonia.html

A Geo-Biological Mars?
http://yowusa.com/Archive/March2001/09MAR01a/09mar01a.htm

Life on Mars! (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/

Colour and Feature Changes at Mars Viking Lander Site  (Levin /
Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/color/color.htm

'Mars: The Living Planet"  (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie2/reprint106a.htm

Dr. Gilbert V. Levin's August 1997 SPIE Paper  (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie/spiehtml.htm

Coral Reef, Seagrass and Mangrove Forest Links:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/global_issues/coral_reefs/websites.html


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