Mars isn’t as sleepy as many scientists suspected. An international research team, which includes Brown University planetary geologist James Head, has found evidence of recent glacial movement and volcanic eruptions in 3D images from the Mars Express mission. The team’s latest work, laid out in three Nature papers, also includes evidence of a frozen sea close to the equator. These and other Mars Express findings are stoking debate about the possibility of life on the Red Planet.

Glaciers moved from the poles to the tropics 350,000 to 4 million years ago, depositing massive amounts of ice at the bases of mountains and volcanoes in the eastern Hellas region near the planet’s equator, based on a report by a team of scientists analyzing images from the Mars Express mission. Scientists also studied images of glacial remnants on the western side of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. They found additional evidence of recent ice formation and movement on these tropical mountain glaciers, similar to ones on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

In a second report, the international team reveals previously unknown traces of a major eruption of Hecates Tholus less than 350 million years ago. In a depression on the volcano, researchers found glacial deposits estimated to be 5 to 24 million years old.

James Head, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and an author on the Nature papers, said the glacial data suggests recent climate change in Mars’ 4.6-billion-year history. The team also concludes that Mars is in an "interglacial" period. As the planet tilts closer to the sun, ice deposited in lower latitudes will vaporize, changing the face of the Red Planet yet again.

Discovery of the explosive eruption of Hecates Tholus provides more evidence of recent Mars rumblings. In December, members of the same research team revealed that calderas on five major Mars volcanoes were repeatedly active as little as 2 million years ago. The volcanoes, scientists speculated, may even be active today.

"Mars is very dynamic," said Head, lead author of one of the Nature reports. "We see that the climate change and geological forces that drive evolution on Earth are happening there."

Head is part of a 33-institution team analyzing images from Mars Express, launched in June 2003 by the European Space Agency. The High Resolution Stereo Camera, or HRSC, on board the orbiter is producing 3D images of the planet’s surface.

These sharp, panoramic, full-color pictures provided fodder for a third Nature report. In it, the team offers evidence of a frozen body of water, about the size and depth of the North Sea, in southern Elysium.

A plethora of ice and active volcanoes could provide the water and heat needed to sustain basic life forms on Mars. Fresh data from Mars Express – and the announcement that live bacteria were found in a 30,000-year-old chunk of Alaskan ice – reported on this blog - is fueling discussion about the possibility of past, even present, life on Mars. In a poll taken at a European Space Agency conference last month, 75 percent of scientists believe bacteria once existed on Mars and 25 percent believe it might still survive there.

Head recently traveled to Antarctica to study glaciers, including bacteria that can withstand the continent’s dry, cold conditions. The average temperature on Mars is estimated to be 67 degrees below freezing. Similar temperatures are clocked in Antarctica’s frigid interior.

"We’re now seeing geological characteristics on Mars that could be related to life," Head said. "But we’re a long way from knowing that life does indeed exist. The glacial deposits we studied would be accessible for sampling in future space missions. If we had ice to study, we would know a lot more about climate change on Mars and whether life is a possibility there."

The European Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center and the Freie Universitaet in Berlin built and flew the HRSC and processed data from the camera. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) supported Head’s work.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/30/2005 08:31:00 AM 0 comments links to this post

If you are located in the UK, not too far from London, and use ESRI software, this may be of interest:

ESRI User group meeting
Wednesday, 27 April 2005
Department of Geomatic Engineering
1st Floor, Chadwick Building
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Map

Start is at 1:30 pm and goes on till about 4:30 pm.

As I understand it, you will need to book places.

Contact:

Clive L Swan
Principal GIS Analyst
Environmental Services
3RD Floor, Brent House
349-357 High Road
Middlesex HA9 6BZ

Tel 020 8937 5332 (that's a UK number)

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/22/2005 11:24:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

I received an e-mail from my metamorphism list this morning with details of what looks to be a very interesting workshop (although I will not be attending). Details as follows (I've edited this slightly as the poster was not a native speaker):

This is the first anouncement for the PERIDOTITE WORKSHOP 2005, a four-day meeting on mantle processes organized by the Working Group on Mediterranean Ophiolites (GLOM). It will be held on September 27-30, 2005 in Brione di Val della Torre, Torino, ITALY.

Abstract and registration deadline is June 30, 2005.

The Workshop consists of two days of oral/poster presentations and two days of field excursion on the Lanzo Peridotite Massif.

Some invited key-note speakers (J-L. Bodinier, F. Boudier, H. Downes, G. Manatschal, A. Nicolas, G. Ranalli, M. Seyler, J. Snow, G. Suhr, R.L.M. Vissers) will give general lectures on the “state-of-the-art” on the most prominent mantle processes from different geological-geodynamic and petrologic-geochemical approaches.

This Meeting is aimed at comparing the up-to-date mineralogical, petrologic, geochemical and structural knowledge of mantle rocks brought to the surface during volcanic activity (peridotite xenoliths), exposed at the surface as a result of tectonic processes (orogenic and ophiolitic peridotite massifs) or sampled on the ocean floor (abyssal peridotites). Recent research demonstrates that most of the mineralogical and geochemical features of the mantle rocks sampled at lithospheric levels, i.e. xenoliths in basalts and kimberlites, orogenic and ophiolitic peridotite massifs, and abyssal peridotites, are the result of the interaction with melts migrating through the lithospheric mantle column. Accordingly, particular attention will be dedicated to the processes of depletion, refertilization, thermochemical and thermomechanical erosion of the lithospheric mantle, and of asthenosphere/lithosphere interaction that are produced by the diffuse and reactive percolation of asthenospheric melts through the mantle lithosphere. The Meeting is of particular interest for presenting results of petrologic, geochemical, geophysical, structural and isotopic research on orogenic continental and ophiolitic peridotites, abyssal peridotites and mantle xenoliths in basaltic and kimberlitic volcanites.

The abstracts will be published in a regular Ofioliti issue. Critical reviews and original papers presented at the Meeting will be published in a Special Issue of Journal of Geodynamics.

For further details including preliminary program, registration form, abstract submission instructions and accomodation see the meeting web pages.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/21/2005 10:58:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

The most intense swarms of earthquakes detected in the last 10 to 12 years on the far edge of the Juan de Fuca plate could indicate the eruption of magma from the seafloor or an underwater volcano. Between 50 and 70 earthquakes an hour, most of them small, were occurring at the end of February at a spot some 200 miles off the Canadian coast.

University of Hawaii's Jim Cowen, chief scientist, and National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's Ed Baker, co-chief scientist, are at sea now leading an expedition at the Endeavour Segment, the site of the quakes. The Endeavour Segment is located in deep water and the quakes are not of a magnitude that would cause noticeable effects on land in Canada or the United States.

Reports from the expedition are online. As of March 8, the site said the number of quakes had calmed in recent days.

The scientists are on board the Thomas G. Thompson, the 274-foot research vessel operated by the University of Washington, and will return to Seattle March 11. The project is a rapid-response cruise funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, with cooperation from the Canadian government.

There have been six rapid-response cruises to investigate seismic activity on the Juan de Fuca plate since 1991, the most recent having been in 2001 led by Marv Lilley, University of Washington oceanographer.

Nowhere have scientists been in position to document lava flows while they are erupting, other than in Hawaii where Kilauea lavas flow into the sea, Lilley says. They've been tantalizingly close a few times out on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, once detecting fresh lava that was still hot enough to have diffuse water flowing out of it and another time arriving to find small glass shards still suspended in the water.

Even if there is no chance to witness lava flows, scientists are eager to arrive at the site as quickly as possible to measure changes that rapidly unfold following an eruption. Fluids discharged into the ocean during such events can form a billowing plume half a mile thick and stretching 6 miles in diameter, substantially changing water temperature and chemistry. Microorganisms flourish, increasing in such abundance that scientists say water near eruption sites can appear blizzard-like as it becomes laden with individual organisms and those that have formed into trailing mats and strings in the water.

"What's expelled gives scientists a view into what's deep in the seafloor, in places scientists can't reach," chief scientist Cowen says.

The swarms of quakes started Feb. 27 and lasted long enough that co-chief scientist Ed Baker told the Seattle Times before the expedition left port that, "We're pretty sure lava is moving."

The seafloor quakes are monitored by SOSUS, the SOund SUrveillance System, that can "hear" sound waves generated by seismic events, submarines or whales.

The swarms are centered about 200 miles west of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, at 48 degrees N and 129 degrees W. The seafloor is about a mile and a half below the surface there. As of March 4, fewer than 10 quakes an hour were being detected.

The site is on the Endeavour Segment, on the northern part of the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The ridge is where the Juan de Fuca plate is pulling away from a neighboring plate. Molten lava typically oozes up into the open spaces creating new seafloor at a pace of usually only inches a year. There can be more rapid spreading, however, during volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Fields of hydrothermal vents form where seawater circulates beneath the seafloor gaining heat and chemicals until the fluids vent back into the ocean, sometimes like geysers. As the fluids mix with cold seawater the chemicals separate and solidify, sometimes piling up into impressive mounds, spires and chimneys.

Researchers will sample sea water, take images using a camera sled, collect rock fragments and deploy three to four floats made especially to be able to float along with the plume of vent fluids for several months.

There is the possibility scientists will find something other than an eruption underway. A swarm of earthquakes off the coast in 2001 caused an area of the seafloor to draw in surrounding seawater for more than a year. It was a surprising twist for scientists who visited the site expecting to find hot water, and possibly magma, being expelled, says Lilley, leader of that expedition and co-author of a paper last July in Nature about the event. The void created by the earthquakes was under negative pressure, drawing water down into hundreds of feet of sediments, something scientists had never observed before.

Scientists, graduate students and undergraduates on the current expedition are from the University of Hawaii, University of Washington, University of Miami, Oregon State University, NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as students from Canada, Hong Kong and Switzerland.

Marv Lilley, University of Washington oceanographer, is onshore, (206) 543-0859, lilley@u.washington.edu

Bob Embley, NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Newport, Ore., is onshore, (541) 867-0275, robert.w.embley@noaa.gov

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/19/2005 10:00:00 AM 0 comments links to this post

The HMS Trincomalee in the Historic Quay in Hartlepool. Not a very good picture I'm afraid, but that has been made nearly impossible anyway, at least from ground level. This will probably be where the tall ships will dock.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/17/2005 07:20:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Meanwhile in Hartlepool, a fleet of tall ships is expected to arrive in the summer for an event that could attract thousands of people, if not dozens.

In a an article in the Hartlepool Mail, it is reported that up to 40 ships will dock at Hartlepool Marina en route to Newcastle for the second leg of the world-famous race.

The magnificent fleet of ships, which are up to 300 feet long, will be welcomed to town with a celebration event set up by Hartlepool Borough Council based around a maritime theme, including street theatre, a funfair and continental markets. Judging by some of the things I've seen in the past, I dread to think what they imagine to be a "continental market".

The event, scheduled for between July 22 and July 24, has been hailed as something which could be a great boost to businesses in town and also help to put the marina on the map internationally. Yes, well. The tall ships should certainly be worth looking at.

Go HERE to read the complete story in the one and only Hartlepool Mail.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/14/2005 09:57:00 PM 11 comments links to this post

The hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom were miles from any location scientists could have imagined. One massive seafloor vent was 18 stories tall. All were creamy white and gray, suggesting a very different composition than the hydrothermal vent systems that have been studied since the 1970s.

Scientists who named the spot Lost City knew they were looking at something never seen before when the field was serendipitously discovered in Dec. 2000, during a National Science Foundation (NSF) expedition to the mid-Atlantic.

This week in the journal Science, researchers publish for the first time findings about the gases produced at Lost City and the organisms that live off of them. Both are so different from so-called black-smoker hydrothermal vents they may provide a whole new avenue for studying the earliest life on Earth as well as looking for signs of life on other planets, according to Deborah Kelley, a University of Washington oceanographer and lead author of the report.

“This finding is an exciting example of NSF’s commitment to discovery through basic research,” said Bilal Haq, director of NSF’s marine geology and geophysics program, which funded the research. “Lost City shows us that geological, chemical and biological processes are intimately linked at a primal environment, and lends strong support to the need for interdisciplinary approaches to scientific research.”

The field was named Lost City in part because it sits on a seafloor mountain named the Atlantis Massif, and because researchers were using the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's vessel Atlantis when the area was discovered. The field is about 300 feet by 1,000 feet, has 30 large vents, some 30 to 200 feet tall, and contains hundreds of smaller structures. Steep cliffs behind the field are shingled with carbonate.

Microorganisms at Lost City live in highly alkaline fluids that are nearly as caustic as drain opener, Kelley says, whereas organisms inhabiting black-smoker vents are well adjusted to acidic fluids.

Further, she says, Lost City microbes appear to live off bountiful methane and hydrogen. But absent is carbon dioxide, the key energy source for life at black-smoker vents. And there is little hydrogen sulfide and only very low traces of metals, a common staple for many of the microbes at the other kind of vents.

According to researchers, a circulation pattern known as serpentinization creates a chemical reaction between seawater and the mantle rock on which Lost City sits and accounts for the differences in living environments in the two vent areas. The resulting fluids are 105 to 170 . At the other kind of field, first discovered in the early 1970s, volcanic activity or magma drives venting and heats fluids to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. The vents at such sites are often referred to as black smokers because some emit hot, mineral-laden fluid that looks like dark, billowing smoke when it hits the icy cold seawater.

Carbonate minerals from fluids at Lost City drape nearby cliffs in brilliant white and form vents ranging in shape from tiny toadstools to the 18-story column, named Poseidon, which dwarfs most known black smoker vents by at least 100 feet. Some places resemble the sort of deposits one might see in spectacular caves with spires and smoothly rippled surfaces in a complex 3-dimensional array, says Duke University’s Jeffrey Karson, co-author of the paper.

Although no one has yet found another field like Lost City, Kelley says she’s sure others exist, because there are so many other places mantle rock has been thrust up through the seafloor, exposing it to seawater and serpentinization.

Perhaps Lost City can provide additional chemical remnants of organisms to help identify ancient life in those rocks or on other planets. “We don’t, in most places, have access to early Earth conditions, so if we can understand the chemical reactions, sources of energy and how fluids circulate through Lost City, it may give us insight into how life started on this planet,” Kelley says.

The work being published was also funded by NASA and a Swiss National Science grant.

My note: This story was originally released by the American National Science Foundation, but I can't seem to find the original :-(

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/11/2005 11:04:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Researching some background information for a new translation project yesterday, I stumbled across this in a paper published by the British HSE (Health and Safety Executive):

"Among the total of 68 specimens, 18 flush-ground strip specimens were tested at 6°C in seawater with catholic protection (-1050 mV)."

Auf Deutsch:

Aus insgesamt 68 Proben, wurden 18 plangeschliffene Streifen-Proben bei 6°C in Meerwasser mit katholischen Schutz (-1050 mV) getestet.

God bless

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/11/2005 08:29:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Am besten selbst anschauen, wer am Deutschen Film interessiert ist.

Die Site gibt's auch auf Englisch, allerdings fallen die große Unterschiede zwischen die Deutschen und die Englischen Seiten auf.

If you are interested in German films, take a look at the new German Film Portal.

The site is available in English, although there are (currently?) large differences between the German and English versions.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/08/2005 08:13:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Again, one of those rare opportunities to mix fields and again from an article in the GA Magazine by Richard Howarth.

It appears that Lancaster University's Department of Linguistics and Modern English Usage have opted to use part of the text of an article by A. K. Wells and S. W. Wooldridge, written in 1931, titled The Rock Groups of Jersey with special reference to Intrusive Phenomena. The article was published in the Proceedings, Issue 42. The text is to be included in a forthcoming machine-readable corpus of British-English texts. The article was selected on the basis of random sampling of all articles published in the Proceedings between 1928 and 1934. It will allow investigation of language use in academic writing in the natural sciences during that period and enable comparisions to similar data sampled throughout the twentieth century.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/05/2005 04:07:00 AM 2 comments links to this post

The last piece reminded me of a Geologists Association (GA) meeting I read about, to take place at the Bristol (UK) Glaciology Centre, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol on Friday, June 3^rd, at 6.00 pm (tea served at 5.30 pm (don't you just love us Brits?)).

The exploration of subglacial Lake Ellsworth, West Antarctica

Using ice penetrating radar, British glaciologists discovered over 140 liquid water lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheets during the seventies. The largest of these lakes is Lake Vostok, at 250 km long. That's pretty big, although the article in the GA magazine didn't mention how wide it is. The depths of these lakes are judged to be in the 10s - 100s of metres range and are located beneath ice in excess of three kilometres thick (that's about 1.8 miles for you merkins).

The similarity to the last entry that struck me is that no direct measurements of any kind have yet been made in these subglacial waters, but it is expected that they will contain microbial life. These organisims will be extremely ancient and, therefore, quite possibly, unique.

The meeting will deal with these issues and the development of suitable instruments for detecting/identifying these ancient life forms. Such instruments must operate remotely and transmit information over distances, and be miniaturised to fit a 15cm cylinder to pass down the borehole.

The aim is to eventually explore Lake Ellsworth, a smaller, 10 km long subglacial lake, using a team of scientists in one dedicated field season, and thus advance to the spearhead of Antarctic subglacial lake exploration.

Further information on the UK project to explore Lake Ellsworth can be found here.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/05/2005 02:08:00 AM 0 comments links to this post

A NASA astrobiologist has identifed a new "extreme" lifeform. Er, but on earth, not "out there". The discovery was made by NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard Hoover and his collaborator Dr. Elena Pituka of the University of Alabama, in Huntsville.

Oringinally searching for "psychrophiles" (organisms that only live at extremenly low temperatures) in the CRREL tunnel (Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, built in Alaska in the sixties by the US Army) and suspecting his discovery to be diatoms, he realised that he was dealing with "psychrotolerants", organisms capable of enduring deep cold and resuming normal activity after a temperature rise. The bacteria belongs to a group known as "extremephiles", life forms that thrive in conditions hostile to most organisms, such as extremely saline lakes and seas to sea-bottom smokers.

The bacteria were extracted from ice more than 30,000 years old, hence the name Carnobacterium pleistocenium.

The original story can be read here.

- posted by Affenhänger @ 3/05/2005 01:34:00 AM 0 comments links to this post