Are there Trees on Mars?

Page Two

The next image really fascinates me.

It is too long and skinny to make a nice image for here.
It is located at the PDS Browse Page for MOC Image m0902042

The image description is traverse from S polar layer terrain to cratered terrain

At the browse page you will find four segments to this image. There are several interesting things going on here - starting with the mysterious tree shapes and ending with large gaping holes in the ice (if it is ice).

Segment A of m0902042

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Segment a of m0902042 shows both dark and light radial forms that some think may be a vegetation.

There also is a crater in the midst of the "forest". Is there an inversion factor going on here?

The invert of the crater does not really do much damage to the rest of the image
(if one knows that is what one is looking at)


And then we have this.

Isolated and identical forms. What are they?

It
is said that there is not much topographic relief in these images from the Martian south pole - that the light and shadows at these angles distort the perspective. That may be so, but that does not resolve the problem of what these forms are.

I
do not think these are trees. If living vegetation exists here, it would be low to the ground. Even giant forms would be low to the ground. This is not due to any atmospheric or gravitational influence. This is a polar region. There is a big difference between the arctic and places that get a lot of snow. On Earth trees just don't grow in the deep arctic like they do where you go for winter vacation. Not a lot of anything grows in the arctic. But what does grow is strong, tough, and well adapted to the environment. Plants of the arctic and near arctic grow low to the ground to avoid the freezing winds.
Orchards grow in Alaska - lots of them. But you will not see them at you local nursery. They are tiny, barely noticeable, and grow close to the ground. They will not grow anywhere else. Grasses live through their roots so to speak, "dying" down and reemerging when the season is right. Many migrating animals follow the seasons of the grasses. Lichens and mosses are low growing and spreading. They also grow in specific situations. After a glacier retreats lichen is one of the first organisms to migrate onto newly exposed land. There are many kinds of lichen, some settling on organic matter and others attaching themselves to rock.
Certainly one cannot see any kind of plant in these images. One cannot see vegetation in a lot of images of Earth. But we know it is there by the visual signatures it leaves in photographic processes such as Landsat. Can we discern such signatures in these images from Mars? What are the odds of finding many identical structures like the ones in the image above?
One
popular notion is that the south pole is defrosting. And it is. These images were taken during various phases of the south polar spring. But what is defrosting? No one really knows. Geologist and other experts are having a difficult time describing these structures. Is the answer as simple as sublimating ice? Yes, the ice is sublimating (we think). However, sublimating ice - vapor - does not make dendritic or radial patterns - the structure beneath it does. It is possible that thawing ice will manifest particular patterns. It is possible that peaks and rises in the landscape can create this kind of pattern as the higher points become free of ice and snow. But usually these patterns are the result of the actions of streams.

Larger 3D Image

A closer look reveals neither sublimation nor drainage patterns, but
landforms - or plant forms - with radial, almost wavy patterns.


3D images require red and blue glasses. Allow a few moments for your eyes to adjust to the 3D anaglyphs. If you take your time viewing, the features will focus better. Also experiment with adjusting the distance between you and your screen. Sometimes it works well to step back a few feet from the screen, and sometimes darkening the room helps bring out the 3D effect.


Compare the above to this image from m0804580c.

The isolated form here does not appear to be as radial as the ones above.

In 3D - larger image

The
object in question appears to be in a depression. The lighter barren area around it also gently slopes down toward the darker area, and has depressions of its own. To test the image I inverted it. The depression remains. Because it is an invert some things are up instead of down. But the basic structure does not reverse perspective. The structure is still low, like an enclosed valley. Perhaps this structure behaves like a sinkhole as spring thawing causes groundwater to move.

Large

In
some ways the inverted 3D image seems clearer. There is a definite dendritic pattern happening down there. The answer may be somewhere between the original view and the invert. We need many more images. How about images from another source? We need a good long walkabout at the south pole.


Page Three

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-- Image Credits --

Mars Global Surveyor MOC Images -PDS Images Planetary Image Atlas