Forests of Mars

AstroCafe · April 5, 2001, 6:29am

`The 'Forests of Mars': Biology or Exotic Geology?
ERAS NEWS
The Eras Project: The Mars Initiative
THE 'FORESTS OF MARS': BIOLOGY OR EXOTIC GEOLOGY?

http://farshores.topcities.com/farshores/ufoera02.htm

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