"There is absolutely no methane on Mars. The only place methane is produced naturally is in my pants. It's so much FUN!"
Posted on 09/23/2004 8:53:43 AM PDT by RightWhale
Especially when you factor in all the hot gas.
for your viewing pleasure.
Reading this, I immediately thought of another source, but several have posted on this ahead of me.
Scientists in the US have witnessed the production of methane under the conditions that exist in the Earth's upper mantle for the first time. The experiments demonstrate that hydrocarbons could be formed inside the Earth via simple inorganic reactions -- and not just from the decomposition of living organisms as conventionally assumed -- and might therefore be more plentiful than previously thought.
Thanks. We should be aware of the whole context. If life on Mars is formally announced by NASA, we would want to be as knowledgeable as we are on manual typewriter fonts. Which is to say we need to know more than Dan Rather. Maybe that's not asking enough.
Hi - if you are going to remove a graphic from my post, you might as well remove the entire post, otherwise the text won't be taken in the right context. Thanks.
Some joker on the radio here noted that story about the giant glob of sugar, and said it figures, since we live in the Milky Way. [rimshot]
he estimates there could be about 20 tons of methanogenic bacteria currently living on Mars
I'll bet there's more than that in john Kerry's mouth.
Gold's book:Russian discovery blows gas theoryRussian microbiologists have proved that methane is evolved by archaebacteria living in the hot salt solutions circulating deep in the crust. The research, by Nadezhda Verkhovtseva of Lomonosov Moscow State University, implies that organic-rich sediment may not be the only source for useful hydrocarbon reserves. The samples were obtained from the Vorotilovskaya Deep Well (70km north of Nizhny Novgorod). The implication of this is that many areas, formerly rejected as hydrocarbon plays should now be looked at with renewed interest.
out of the oil windowGas (Methane) Hydrates BRecent mapping conducted by the USGS off North Carolina and South Carolina shows large accumulations of methane hydrates. A pair of relatively small areas, each about the size of the State of Rhode Island, shows intense concentrations of gas hydrates. USGS scientists estimate that these areas contain more than 1,300 trillion cubic feet of methane gas, an amount representing more than 70 times the 1989 gas consumption of the United States. Some of the gas was formed by bacteria in the sediments, but some may be derived from deep strata of the Carolina Trough. The Carolina Trough is a significant offshore oil and gas frontier area where no wells have been drilled.
A New FrontierLife After Death in the Deep SeaAbstract: The first examples of life forms not dependent on solar energy were discovered by scientists using towed cameras and the submersible Alvin in 1977 along hydrothermal vents of the Galapagos Rift. Since then, investigators have made hundreds of dives aboard Alvin to learn more about these unusual ecological communities. In the spring of 1991, Alvin and its tender, Atlantis II, happened to be on station above the East Pacific Rise between 9 and 10 degrees north latitude only a few days after the axial summit trough 2,550 meters below the surface erupted, obliterating a thriving vent community. The authors made numerous dives on the 9N Biotransect over the ensuing 10 years. Their article describes the return of life to the vents and the ecological succession they witnessed.
by Richard A. Lutz,
Timothy M. Shank,
and Robert EvansLife on other PlanetsHighly oxidized iron is abundant on Mars, and very small-grained magnetite can then be expected to be one of the accumulated residues of microbial processes; so can iron sulfide and methane-derived carbonates. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are the large molecules that might remain in a rock that originally contained crude oil but then was exposed for millions of years to the high vacuum of space. All these substances have been found in the discovery meteorite, closely packaged to each other, and this by itself would make a strong case for the microbial interpretation. In addition, there are small objects seen under scanning electron microscopy that may well be fossils of microbes. While the last item by itself would not be conclusive evidence, the combination of this together with oil and the three residue products make a strong case for the microbial explanation. It is true that each step can occur without biological intervention, but the chance of finding by chance the evidence for all three solids in a small volume, together with hydrocarbons, seems to be very low. Many terrestrial oil and gas wells show just such an association (but an association with helium also, which the meteorite could not have transported through space).
by Thomas Gold
May 1997
The Deep, Hot Biosphere
by Thomas Gold
foreword by Freeman Dyson
another discontinuity (sort of) worthy of Star Trek: Voyager.
Mars Life Looms Closer ^
Posted by SunkenCiv
On News/Activism ^ 09/23/2004 10:54:57 PM PDT · 30 of 29 ^
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