Ammonite Fossil detected by the Rover on Mars? Curiosity Sol 551.

Violater1
Dude..it took me like 2 seconds to see it

Me too. I zoomed right in on it. It's a nice find. ~$heopleNation

Awesome!!! I love fossils and even have an ammonite tattooed on my foot.

I love going down into the badlands and hunting for fossils in the summer.

If I saw that I would most definitely check it out and see if it was real, or just a regular rock. To me, it looks legit, but sometimes rocks look like fossils, until you get up close and poke and prod, and find out they are nothing special.

Violater1
reply to post by Arken

 

Here is the linked photo. Also looks like Mollusk shells embedded in the soil as well.

Nice find Arken!
SnF

upon closer inspection, I think that this looks very much like some of the fossilized shells I find in the badlands.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy


Interesting. So you've gone outside the box (the box being the object we're looking at with this thread) and just above it, right there, you see images which remind you of fossils you have personally gathered. And they are a slightly different color (or, as colors go, vastly different) than the surrounding rock, just as the "main" object below retains its slight or vast difference in color compared to its immediate surroundings. Nice find, and good eye! Can you tell us more about why you think they and the fossils you've collected are similar? Thanks.

While I applaud your tireless efforts to find that "smoking gun" Arken, I really do feel you do a lot of reaching in your posts. I'd like others (and you) to actually very carefully look at those images. Examine them -carefully-... not just haphazardly, and then highlight a general spiral pattern. Fossils of mollusks on Earth are symmetrical - not larger in some areas, wobbly and haphazard. It's similar to many of the "house" pictures people post. Sure.. it's a house.. if you don't mind living in a house built by drunk rank amateurs, with slanting crooked walls, and asymmetrical designs. It could be alien.. maybe.. I guess. But I doubt it.

You have to admit that many patterns in rocks imitate organic life. We see it all the time even here on Earth. So.. I suppose keep up your crusade, but many of the circled things you post are just rocks.. they are nothing, and I honestly hope you actually realize that, and that you post with the hope of finding something.. not with the belief that you actually have.

reply to post by fleabit


You'll talking of a perfect fossil impression. Please take into account, as funbox points out, the effects of the climate on Mars in the past (when this area was under water), including any erosion factors. This is just what an ancient fossil may look like after it comes out the other end and is seen by a camera on a rover operated by humans on earth.

DJW001

spacemanjupiter
I agree that it seems to be too asymmetrical to be what is suggested, but then again, the OP is the type of person that will be the one to eventually find something extraordinary, simply because they take the time to look. Even if I didn't agree with the next 100 posts of this kind, the 101st could be the one to not overlook. Some seem a little silly, some are not. They are all worth at least a glance.

The problem is that he is so indiscriminate in his posting that if he ever does spot something real, no-one will believe him, like the boy who cried wolf. A fossilized shell fish is exactly the sort of thing one might find in a dried up Martian lake. (In fact, there will be genuine news along these lines as the actual data from Curiosity percolates.) [snipped].... that they are pareidolia, although it has often been pointed out [snipped] that artificial structures do not exist in isolation. They require roads, dwellings, municipal water supplies, and so forth.

edit on Sat Apr 5 2014 by DontTreadOnMe because: Go After the Ball, Not the Player!

I have to agree, I don't think I have ever seen anything in 'his' images that makes me think "WOW!" I'm glad he is looking but unless he finds something worth posting, I wish he would not get so worked up over ordinary rocks!
Also, calling someone a 'troll' for discussing the OP is not productive either... I don't think you are trolling DJW001, I think you are simply saying in so many words "Don't post images unless you find something worth looking at!"
We all know that if you have to highlight or draw a line around some image, it's not worth speculating on!

Aleister
reply to post by SalientSkivvy

 

Interesting. So you've gone outside the box (the box being the object we're looking at with this thread) and just above it, right there, you see images which remind you of fossils you have personally gathered. And they are a slightly different color (or, as colors go, vastly different) than the surrounding rock, just as the "main" object below retains its slight or vast difference in color compared to its immediate surroundings. Nice find, and good eye! Can you tell us more about why you think they and the fossils you've collected are similar? Thanks.

Thanks! My dad use to take my sister and I down when we were young and go looking for fossils. It's kinda something you have to train your eye for, because technically fossils are rock. So you have to know what to look for.
I mean, I ain't no geologist or anything, but I do know a little bit about this stuff from over 20 years of experience of doing it for fun.
Oh I wish I wasn't a dinosaur when it comes to technology, otherwise I would totally right now take pics and upload them of some of my finds... If I find the cord to connect my phone to my computer Ill get back to you with that. lol

Again, it's hard to tell from just a photo, it isn't until you are holding it in your hands and can exam it up close, but if I were down in the badlands, and spotted that, I would most definitely check it out.

What makes me think of shells is the shape, same with that ammonite. I definitely see that there.

Sorry for my crappy paint outline, but here's what I see in pink:

SUCCESS!! I took some pics of some of the things I'v found over the years of rummaging around in the dirt and with rocks, searching for something cool.. These are like "meh" kinda cool I guess.. Some shells...That's mostly what I find, shells, petrified wood, and chunks of bone... I'm always looking for something awesome like a skull or teeth lol...

anyways...



So yeah, to me, the pics from Mars looks like some interesting stuff.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy


Nice, those fossils, especially since you found them yourself and didn't pick them up at some of those fossil sales or auctions, it's like holding earth's biological history in your hand. The areas you found them in surely were under the ocean at the point these little guys were living and poking around the sea for themselves.

That second to last one is a gem. And, of course, the last picture is relevant to this thread in that it gives an earth hold-in-hand credibility that not only may the object within or upon the Mars rock have an oceanic-biological look about it, but that the wearing on the object itself is not at all unusual. These wouldn't be found in perfect shape, as funbox mentioned. Nice collection.

What would the reaction be if these natural rock formations (which are on Earth) were found on Mars?
These may have been posted before, I am just posting to show that in nature, all shapes are possible!

Yup, Alberta was once covered in water up to the rocky mountains.
I go out past Drumheller, Alberta. The Royal Tyrrell museum is located down there outside the town, which is in a canyon.
The museum was put there because the land is so rich in fossils. Dinosaur provincial park is about an hour south from there, but you can't go in there and dig stuff up cuz it's protected.
You can literately see the lines in the walls showing the sedimentary layers in the earth.

And yes, I'm convinced that the OP is right about the ammonite. It has the golden spiral shape to it.. something found in nature everywhere.
Now all we need is for NASA to send some paleontologist to Mars, so they can excavate and bring back evidence. lol

reply to post by wulff


I don't get what you're trying to get at.
I see pics of rocks that look like faces.. But I don't see anything resembling fossils...???

Show me a picture of rocks with the golden spiral and them maybe i'll understand.

reply to post by wulff


I don't think anyone seriously into possible Mars biological discoveries would believe those were anything but familiar shapes if they were found on Mars. The odds of a human or alien looking face or statue are so high that the first and foremost explanation is "rock, but a rock shape familiar to our brain". We've found many "statues" and faces on the Mars anomaly thread, and take these as fun things to post but not as possible civilization artifacts. The area in question is oceanic in nature, the objects which are of main interest are those that "look" like they could be fossils of life which lived in that environment.

The main object under the microscope (I wish!) in this thread looks a lot like it could be a fossil, and that's why a thread such as this, and a find such as that, hold interest and importance in case the rover finds more of these as it goes into Murray Buttes and then takes a look at the sedimentary layers of Mount Sharpe. The items found so far will then be like a back-catalogue to the objects or imprints which may be found there, so it's a "just in case" type of discovery. Could it possibly be a marine-biological fossil? Possibly. And that's the key word imnho with the better finds (which are few, but there are enough of them to make it interesting and worthwhile).

Proving, or even compiling potential evidence, of proof of past life on another planet, would be one of mankind's major leaps in discovery and awareness, so there is little hurt by Arken and quite a few others giving ATS a collection of "potentials" to look though and pick over once in awhile to further share and analyze.

reply to post by Destinyone


Yes. Nice pics. I see simile in isolated parts in many of them.
I like the images of diploria, which seem to fit the physical layout of the ring.
Cool.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy


The Alberta fossil environment is one I've never visited, you are very lucky to be around it. Do people find fossils there when they dig into the earth, foundations for buildings, even just walking around in the woods? Thanks.

reply to post by Aleister


In and around Drumheller yes, all the time.. Like this ‘Gargantuan’ pachyrhinosaur skull found in Drumheller and this Baby dinosaur skeleton found intact in Alberta were discovered recently.
If you go West towards the mountains, in the kananaskis country, there's an area that's full of coral and ancient underwater plant material, and shells.
There's hiking trails that you can walk, along the river bank, and pretty much the sides of the mountains and along the trail is littered with this stuff.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy


Nice, and even in protected areas I'd have to have my hands tied-behind my back because I wouldn't trust myself not to pocket one (then again, if I lay down just right, and feel around behind my back, and then pop it into my back pocket......)

reply to post by Aleister


Oh I don't ever really go into Dinosaur Provincial park because of that reason. lol. It's too much of a tease.
Else where it's not a law, and it's not protected, but the museum and towns people kinda frown upon it... but they don't do anything. I mean, with each rainfall, it washes away a new layer, so it's not like it's going to run out.
There's millions and millions and millions of years hidden under all those layers. People have only scratched the surface of whats to be found from our past.
Pretty crazy to think about... I think it would be the coolest thing ever to find a new species of dinosaur or whatever other animal/organism.

SalientSkivvy
reply to post by wulff

 

I don't get what you're trying to get at.
I see pics of rocks that look like faces.. But I don't see anything resembling fossils...???

Show me a picture of rocks with the golden spiral and them maybe i'll understand.

edit on 7-4-2014 by SalientSkivvy because: (no reason given)

What I am getting at (and I'm not trying to make anyone look dumb or belittle anyone as I would LOVE to find life on Mars) but remember the first images that Richard Hoagland thought were fossils that NASA then ground away? A lot of experts came forward explaining how natural erosion, crystal formation can mimic a fossil, also remember the 'bacterial' "fossils" found in the Mars meteor had everyone's expectations on edge? Even President Bill Clinton held a press conference but then in November 2009, a team of scientists at Johnson Space Center, including David McKay, argued that since their original paper was published, the biometric hypothesis has been "further strengthened by the presence of abundant fossil-like structures in other Martian meteorites." However, the scientific consensus is that "morphology alone cannot be used unambiguously as a tool for primitive life detection." Interpretation of morphology is notoriously subjective, and its use alone has led to numerous errors of interpretation. In other words, we can't at this time definitely say we are looking at fossils in these Mars images, what it says to me (in regards to the 'Mars Meteorite') is we can hold it in our hands, subject it to electron microscopes and spectrum analyze it and still not know!
My point was, it doesn't matter if it's a 300 foot rock that looks like a head or a 5 micron long 'worm' we can easily be fooled.
Until we get images from Mars that are as clear as the terrestrial ones that ATS members has shown on this thread, I can't see getting too excited.