Cool Find...Petrified Tree Spotted On Mars?

Not adding to my opinion it's a rock, (note-opinion)
but I noticed there is a suggestion of a man or woman
reaching for a sword. maybe it's statue!
sorry for using paint to highlight. I was being lazy.
see original pic by OP and it will jump right out.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: shawmanfromny

Thanks.

I think it's a rock.

Petrified trees are rocks.

a reply to: PlasticWizard

Petrified trees are rocks.

True enough.

It looks cool though. gonna go with rock until evidence suggests otherwise.

What I see is a lot of seriously crumbling, dryed out, layers protrubing, delicate rock all round. Caused by millions of years of lack of water, erosion and exposure. Somebody tell me why a a tree stump should be sitting in the middle of it all?
What it looks like is a layered rock, similar to those around except that it is up ended, (how it got that way you could debate all day) and the pitiful layers are just falling off into pretty much little pieces and dust. That's just how dry the most of the Mars surface is.

a reply to: shawmanfromny
Here is another photo where the "tree" was captured.


and a panorama stitch of both


I'd guess it's part of the rock on the right with the same darker color and erosion features.
It also seems to align with it.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Logic dictates it cannot be a tree.

Maybe im wrong, it depends on how long a petrified tree can stand for? 10's of millions of years? i dunno!

When looking at the full pic it seems pretty clear it's just part of a larger previous rock formation.
When looking at the pic of just the rock it looks similar to a petrified tree.

This is a perfect example of people seeing what they want to see so it fits whatever story they are trying to tell.

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: tigertatzen
What if it's not petrified at all?

Al rocks undergo peetrification...

There was this old explorer, he returned from exploring the wilderness in early america. He told of fantastic finds, whole peetrified forests. In one peetrified tree he said, there was a peetrified branch, and on the branch was a peetrified nest, in which sat a peetrified bird, singing a peetrified song...

And whoever heard the song was petrified.

Great find. Great find indeed. I've got the goosebumps. S&F.

Yes

Investigate the # out of it.

a reply to: combatmaster

With the winds that have been recorded, along with the dust/sand storms?

Seems unlikely that it would stand for long, geologically speaking...or so I would surmise. Still a very cool picture.

originally posted by: shlaw
Not adding to my opinion it's a rock, (note-opinion)
but I noticed there is a suggestion of a man or woman
reaching for a sword. maybe it's statue!
sorry for using paint to highlight. I was being lazy.
see original pic by OP and it will jump right out.

That looks like a dude flipping me off.

a reply to: ypperst

Dude... it's just a rock.

originally posted by: shlaw
a reply to: ypperst

Dude... it's just a rock.

I was talking about your drawing 😄

Back to the op; it does kinda look like a petrified tree, but im leaning towards a rock. Even tho you dont see a stone like that everyday.

a reply to: ypperst

That's a rock too. Move along.



I do genuinely think it's a cool find though.
rock or otherwise.

a reply to: intergalactic fire
Nice hi res pics, best so far.

We see the thinly layered stratification of the rocks, broken up by some cataclysm. The thin layers of dust settled over time on Mars were not deposited by water erosion, but by the wind. Very fine dust results in very fine layers which could be misinterpreted as tree rings.

On earth the same sort of strata builds up in desert regions, as mars like as, well... Mars.

mars and earth desert strata

originally posted by: seagull
Seems unlikely that it would stand for long, geologically speaking...or so I would surmise. Still a very cool picture.

I assume that like a lot of the other seemingly "out of place" rocks that end up in strange places, it may have been dislodged by a meteorite impact that threw it into that position. Because of the way the stratified layers appear to be busted up into smaller segments, it seems like some kinds of relatively violent things happen occasionally (every few 100,000 years) that tip things on end or send them flying. That would be my guess.

a reply to: Blue Shift

That completely possible. A good guess. ...and given how the sand/soil moves in the wind, it could have happened very recently, too.

originally posted by: seagull
That completely possible. A good guess. ...and given how the sand/soil moves in the wind, it could have happened very recently, too.

I have a pet theory that the entire Solar System periodically (regularly) makes its way through a portion of space that has a much higher density of asteroids or other similar rocky debris, slamming all the planets and moons. I don't know what the periodicity of this might be, though. Every 12,000 years or so?

originally posted by: shawmanfromny
a reply to: Tardacus

On earth, there are many "lone" petrified trees.

Those trees are dead, not petrified.

For a tree to become petrified, the carbon atoms have to be slowly replaced with silicone ones. The once burnable tree becomes unburnable rock.

The process takes many millions of years to happen. And also requires silica rich water (most if not all petrified trees are from ancient swamps)