Fossils on Mars - A Collection of Evidence

Fossils are rare. Go take a walk sometime, even in an remote mountain, or hilly countryside, where not many folks go. Look for fossils. See how many you find. Likely, you'll find none. Fossils are formed by pressure. They don't form on the surface. Typically almost all are deposited as sediments by moving water. Subsequent processes hardened them into sedimentary rock, as overlying pressure squeezed the water out and the grains were cemented together. I.E. you are assuming water was a common and abundant resource where these fossils are found. There is a reason that the most abundant fossils found on our own planet are marine fossils.

This is how they form on earth, I doubt they would form different on any planet, it's fairly hard science here. This being the case, I'm quite staggered by the sheer multitude of fossils the incredibly slow moving Mars rover has found. Above ground, and very obvious. Amazing!

I'm curious how many of those colored pictures the OP and folks who support this feel are actual fossils, or how many are questionable, or how many are probably not, but you are keeping an open mind.

Originally posted by darkraver


Unfortunately, any sway you have with your argument based on your knowledge of the topic, is lost by the WAY you argue it.

ah,why do you think so?
sarcasm is such fun...
I tend to be sarcastic when someone starts flaming

is it a sin?

it is a kind of humor isn't it?


When obvious, yes. But that is not the intent of this thread, nor the reason for people to contribute to it.

I took your initial post as a bit of a laff, it was just rather reaching - a hip bone?! I didn't expect to see you then start to justify it as something you really did believe.

But, to each their own, and I just watched how things went - I try very hard not to get into arguments where it's obvious personal opinion holds more value than logic and facts.

But crikey, some of the arguments you've used have really bordered on the irrational.

That you can opine on the unknown is acceptable and what we all do from time to time - its how we learn from the unknown and what makes us capable of invention - but to take authority over it and blast opposition away in the manner you have, shakes off any validity for me. And I always try to give either side of an opposing view, a good check out before considering my opinion.

And for the record, no one was flaming you. You were asked for a reason for your alleged 'do doubt' claim, and you have resorted to underhanded attacks, at least from my perspective, as a reply.

Sarcasm is best fed by wit, not ignorance.

This as excellent thread.

I'm a firm believer in aliens life, and that Mars may have life on it currently, or has had life live on it in the past.

Pictures of rocks and geographic surface area are very tricky when it comes to making a conclusion about what's being seen.

I am certain all of the members on ATS have picked up or seen rocks that looked like parts of an animal, human, plant, gun, burger pattie...etc. That being said...the possibility that all of these photos are simply photos of rocks is very, very, very high. If you can't pick it up and study it...it's not much evidence at all in this instance.

Then, there's perspective(angles) and lighting. These are other factors that have to be taken into consideration. I remember traveling in a car...and noticed what I thought was a dead midget(no joke) near a lamp pose. As the car came close...what was supposed to be a dead human, turned out to be some parts from a machine of some sort(I'm guessing tractor...or some other vehicle).

You see my point? I remember a picture of a UFO that circled around ATS some time. Some saw an Unidentified Flying Object...others saw a bird. To me...it looked like a bird. All I'm saying is, such evidence can't even be considered evidence to a certain degree. It's sad...but that's how it is.

Originally posted by bloodcircle
But as Zorgon has not had any correspondance back from the guy, Im wondering if the intent was a bit more disingenuous...

Zorgon did not had any correspondence back but I had.

Unfortunately, due to some kind of mistake, I thought I had sent Zorgon the answer Jim Garvin gave me when I asked him about it.

This is what he said about that image.

... it was made to illustrate a point and the image in the uppermost RIGHT is FICTION –we inserted something that is totally un-anticipated to showcase what we cannot rule out today, but for which we have no evidence. The graphic was meant to be ILLUSTRATIVE but not real. We cannot fathom what we do not expect, but with proper observational tools we can be ready to try to understand. This is how exploration works.

Also, the rovers were not sent with the idea of looking for life, and that is visible on the videos available on this page, where Jim Garvin himself explains their idea.

reply to post by darkraver


I still think that it's not homogeneous in the same way as the hundreds of snail trails I have seen all my life.

This image was the best I could find to try to show the difference, I hope you understand what I mean, a snail trails does not have the sides has irregular as the ones on that photo, they are smooth because of the way gastropods walk, and you should know it.



PS: I don't like to eat snails, but they are eaten in large quantities here in Portugal, usually accompanied by cold bear.

reply to post by ArMaP


Thank you for posting his reply to you. Point solved. It was exactly what I thought it was. Still major props to bloodcircle for basically finding an almost exact match for what they put in the pic!...

Originally posted by zorgon

www.thelivingmoon.com...

I believe that is a photo from Utah. When I was a kid I had a big box full of those Iron concretions.

I'm having a bout of insomnia and I got to thinking about this thread and this resulted-


This photo is not real and is for demonstration only.

I wanted to see how difficult it would be to take a 3D model into Photoshop CS3 Extended and add it convincingly to one of these Mars photo's. It was not difficult and it took about an hour. NewTek even has a PS plug-in that will allow you to control lighting inside PS I'm thinking of buying. If someone put in a real effort, with a little practice they could fool almost anyone.


[edit on 8/30/2008 by Blaine91555]

[edit on 8/30/2008 by Blaine91555]

reply to post by Blaine91555


Good job.

But I would replace that image with the same thing but it actually saying 'fake' or 'example' on it. Otherwise you just know it'll turn up elsewhere on the net as 'undeniable proof'...

Originally posted by fleabit
Fossils are rare.

They are not that rare, it depends on the places.

Some 10km from where I live it is common to see the walls of old farms made with stones full of fossils.

We had so many fossils (me and my brother and sisters, and those were only the best we found), that we through them away.

Even here in Almada we have many fossils, and, as you can see, they don't look exactly as the Turritela shown by Zorgon, probably because he showed a shell and this is a real fossil.

Full size image

Another things that makes me doubt that those areas show fossils is that the type of fossil is the same for each area, while here we could find several different types of fossils in a small area.

All these (including the one above) were found on an area maybe 20x20 metres.
Full size image

This is interesting because it shows that a fossil can be made with other fossils.
Full size image

And my favourite, a Megalodon tooth.
Full size image
This tooth is also interesting because we can see (on the full size image) fossils of some kind of animal (biology, and specially paleobiology, is not my strong point) that lived on the tooth before fossilising.

Hating an agency that has contributed so much to our understanding of the universe is just incomprehensable to me. I'm astonished at the willingness of folks to simply bury their head in the sand and ignore the vast contributions NASA has made. What of the other space agencies? Will they soon be on the hate list too?

reply to post by AntisepticSkeptic


I can only speak for myself, but I am one of those people that belive that NASA hasn't told us the whole truth about what they have discovered on our moon and Mars. That does not mean that I hate NASA. I actually have great respect for what they have accomplished - just think about it, the Apollo astronauts actually walked on the moon! (As you can see, I do not believe that the moon landings were hoaxes.)

"Hate" has nothing to do with the desire to know the truth. And since I have discovered that NASA sometimes has altered images, I want to know excactly why they did it. I want to know what they are not telling us. It is as simple as that.

.....

Im sorry, but where in any of those images is there anything even remotely similar to this image?



You're doing an aweful lot of pontificating while providing absoltely nothing of merit to the debate you started, with the words "here is a hipbone of sth. ,no doubt " - yes, yes indeed there is doubt.

Stop being so pompous and try to present your claims coherently. And yes, proof of a claim is the burdon of the person with the claim - not those who they are presenting it to.


.....................................................



not being pompous,only sarcastic

are you two like,a part of a gang here or sth...backing each other up and stuff?

you see,
your friend, although he claimed he KNEW what a hip bone looked like,insisted I draw it for him plain and simple...

for me it is obvious, for him, or you I see, it isn't

I suggested him to renew his hip bone knowledge then
because I'm no expert in photoshopping these images I provided

and because it is obvious that there are three similarities, almost exact to known bone structures of pelvis: acetabulum, sacrum, and coccygix


that indicates more to a hip bone than to a simple rock formation.
that is an argument...
more than he ever provided in our little disscussion...

but here you go,my humble capabilities at hand:








that indicates more to a hip bone of some kind, than to a simple rock formation

it looks like a rock with a hole(never was shown one similar though), but it sure 3:1 wins more looking like a hip bone because of Acetabulum, Christa and Sacrum.
(....if you of course haven't got a predefined opinion of non existance of life on Mars that is)


and that is an argument...

more than he ever provided in our little disscussion...

of course he can again say simply "I don't see it" and continue flaming me again...



p.s.
you can have doubts as same as him, but that doesn't mean he can flame people argumenting with only his "doubts"



it reminds me of:




"this is a rock,no doubt"

"what?a what? Im sorry, but where in this image is there anything even remotely similar to a rock?
I don't see a rock,all I can see is a hip bone here.Please.more evidence..."


[edit on 30-8-2008 by darkraver]

reply to post by AntisepticSkeptic


when I see a post from you I cringe as I know there will be absolutely no positive message in it at all. Nothing like "Thanks Zorgon and armap for spending your time putting togeather information for us to look at for free"
You may not aggree with anyting here as I am sure you are wayyyy smarter than us, but please instead of posting, stick a pencil in you eye next time.

Have a nice day.

reply to post by AntisepticSkeptic


Are you going to post the exact same text on all the threads on Aliens & UFOs or just these two?

You know that it may be considered a breach of the Terms & Conditions?

And I haven't seen any special sign of hate toward NASA, although I think that there is a exaggerated volume of distrust.

reply to post by AntisepticSkeptic



well,I don't hate them...

I simply just don't respect them as much as prior me getting into this subjects
I don't respect them lying to the public...
and them being in a monopolistic role about Mars ground exploration

I don't hate NASA I hate those who control the agency




I can show you a direct evidence of a lie on their own webpage....

...using same Phoenix photos from Mars, adjusting them thorugh color filters, and then publicly saying that one is taken on Sol 1, the other taken on Sol 14 whereas it is the same photo...

Thanks zorgan and armap for putting this presentation together. I do believe that life existed on Mars in the far distant past but unfortunately I think looking at rocks and stones littering the martian landscape and concentrating on those which show interesting similarities to fossils is not the way to go. Our senses work in such a way that we tend to try and bring a recognised order to things which are random. We see shapes where there are none. . . faces in the clouds etc.
The fact that you have to colour and highlight the portions of the pictures shows adequately what I mean. If you're not good at abstracting, or don't know what you're looking for, you simply wont see it.
Its not a criticism just a point of view. I eagerly await your next thread.

ArMap, I don't doubt some areas have a proliferation of fossils, but that's the exception. In general, over a large area, fossils are very uncommon. I live in Colorado, and I hike quite a bit, and quite often over rocky terrain. I don't find fossils, ever. I think I've found one ferny looking fossil in all my time outdoors. So you may have a spot that has an abundance, but how common are those spots really? Not very.

According to the photos presented, there are apparently fossils every square foot covering the entire martian surface. Could fossils follow a different set of rules on Mars? Perhaps, I won't utterly discount this. But if it follows the same patterns of fossilization on our own planet, it would be staggeringly against the odds for there to be that many fossils, absolutely everywhere the rover goes.

Originally posted by dreadphil
ok now see? I can actually wrap my head around this kind of information regarding life ( be it past or present) on Mars..thisis the kind of info and theories I can swallow.

Thanks... but photos like this are hard to come by. Though there are a 'few' I haven't had time to look through...

Just the two Rover collections have
Opportunity: All 108,294 Raw Images
Spirit: All 110,261 Raw Images
and adding 10 to 50 per day

Personally I can show more from documents, but I have found over the past two years that no one really cares... example just these past few threads I mentioned 5 and not one bite...

So if I want to get anything put out there, unfortunately its pictures or youtubes that draw the crowd

Oh well...

thing about mars is its very very unlikely to have had complex life even microbial life would have been hard.

mars has been in its current state for 4 billion years. That means it only had 1 billion years to develope life then complex life and during the first billion years of our solar system that would have been very difficult.

earth is thought to have devleoped microbial life shortly after the late heavy bombardment (1 billion years) it then took a further 3.5 billion years to develop complex life.

Its not realistic to expect fossils of complex animals on the surface. Microbial life may exist deeper under ground.





[edit on 30-8-2008 by yeti101]

Originally posted by Parabol

Looks like it could be a pyrite framboid, or pyrite related in general, some of the others could be as well...

Yes quite right it could be. Thanks for the link but I HATE those sites that want $30.00 to get a scientific paper

But seeing as your into rocks
Sedimentary pyrite: A window into the microbial past
FULL PDF

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