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Re: 'Mars Rocks' -another opinion
- To: "meteorite-list" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
- Subject: Re: 'Mars Rocks' -another opinion
- From: "jjswaim" <MissionControl@email.msn.com>
- Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 12:38:09 -0400
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- Resent-Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 12:40:42 -0400 (EDT)
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Hi list,
With regard to this story from last week, below is an opinion from Dr. James
W. Rice, Jr. offering floods as the culprit in a letter to explorezone,
from whom the story came.
Hello List, (From 9/23/99)
"New research, to be reported in Friday's journal Science, shows that
pebble-sized projectiles are making a lot of little dents in the landscape
of Mars. "
Story at:
http://www.explorezone.com/archives/99_09/23_mars_rocks.htm
Best Regards,
Julia
10/01/99
"Dr. James W. Rice, Jr., a geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona and team member of the Mars Polar Lander Surface
Stereo Imager and Robotic Arm Camera, wrote to explorezone.com to offer this
possible alternate explanation:
"I am a geologist studying Mars geomorphology and I also conduct geological
field investigations in regions on Earth that are Mars analogs (Antarctica,
High Arctic, Iceland). I have been conducting field research in Iceland for
the past two years. I am specifically working on the catastrophic flood
deposits from jokulhlaups, these are glacial outburst floods.
"It is quite common to observe small rocks and boulders with percussion
marks. Percussion marks are created by the grain to grain contact or impact
of rocks banging into one another during flood events. These rocks have
corners knocked off or display small crater forms.
"I have been in the field during flood events and heard boulders slamming
into one another in the water column. It sounds like distant thunder. The
flood induced rock collisions also create smaller rock fragments, these
fragments are usually angular.
"We know that Pathfinder landed on a flood deposit and therefore it seems
much more likely to me that these features and rock fragments are from the
flood(s) that flowed across this region of Mars and not impact craters!"
Best wishes,
Julia
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