Thoughts?

 

It was me.

I know public urination is a crime but, I was drunk and didn't know where I was.

 

Did you see any sign of oil while you were there, Raoul?

 

They knew almost immediately after landing that they would find such a thing...

You see, many types of geological formations only occur under certain circumstances... for example, Limestone only occurs after a shallow warm sea has been in place for millions of years and has deposited copius amounts of mud, organics, etc...etc...etc....

They saw some of these 'tell-tale' signs VERY early on and knew that it was just a matter of time before they confirmed it. Based on the quick reconniasance, I'd say there's been ALOT of water there...

Interesting to see what they find out about it, it's life (if any), and why they think it all went away...

I'll attempt emailing my buddy down at the University of Tennessee that went through undergraduate courses with me at Western Kentucky University. He's one of only a very very small handfull of students that NASA has used for research on the Mars landing project... (student... he's working on his Ph.D now...)

RP

 

I was hoping you'd chime in. This is fascinating stuff.

 

It is pretty neat stuff... I definately agree with you.

I've tried to make it a point to check out the new information on the rovers each week but sometimes it's difficult to do because of time constraints.

We certainly can learn alot about things here on the earth if we can figure out why things changed there. Hence, one of the underlying reasons that we'd want to even check it out up there.

Mars is very much like Earth in various ways.... the more we learn there, the better off we'll be here...


RP

 

Did somebody say Oil? I'll go and do it.

If, in Mars past, there has been water, oxygen and life (like plants) then then there will almost certainly be hydrocarbon deposits.
Rockpick will obviously be the best man here for Geology 101 but if there has been oceans, then you will have sedimentary formations like Limestone, Sandstone and Shale.
Mix in a bit of decaying organic matter, heat and pressure and there's your oilfields all trapped below the surface in the porous rocks.
Given a few million years, that is.

Hey RP, what would you give for 3D Seismic study up there?

 

That's the spirit!

By God, before we find an alternative for the infernal gas combustion engine, we'd rather drill for oil on Mars first!

Wouldn't we need to use some kind of space shuttle tankers?
If I'm not mistaken, the rotation of the Earth would really screw up a Mars pipeline.

 

Interesting that you say that Adam as I've thought about that a bit myself. Although I'm certainly not a Petroleum Geologist of sorts, I do understand formation and the situations under which hydrocarbons form from a geological standpoint.

From what I am reading about Mars, they're finding several tell-tale signs of marine transgressions/regressions. Of course, it's too early to say but, these types of features would be indicitive of water movement (on a very large scale i.e.- oceans) onto land and then off of land. The shales, sandstones, and limestones are all indicitive of that trans/regression stuff (cyclothems as they call them).

Depending on environment, alot of those trans/regression events could've had 'swampy' environments which would be perfect for hydrocarbon/coal/natural gas formation...

RP

 

Heads up Raoul, you've already implicated yourself in the water discover, looks like RP is trying to pin the natural gas stuff on you too....

 

Seismic...

Definately an interesting thought. I wonder if those rovers are equipped with any 'thumper truck' equipment? LOL!

 

Ha. Not a chance but it will happen one day. Probably not in our lifetime though.
If Man is to ever live on Mars, we would need oil up there. Not necessarily for V8 Mars Rovers but all the other byproducts like plastics and other chemicals.

 

Probably right... most people don't realize that plastic manufacturing REQUIRES petroleum.

 

so what is the temperature on Mars, high and low. seems like it would be so cold that water would be frozen all the time.

 

As near as I can remember it was pretty damn cold.

I needed an ice pick to get rid of a fart.