Are there Trees on Mars?

Page Four

The Mighty Lichen

Lichens on a Rock - Click for another window

If these lichens were very very large,
would they compare to the shapes and forms in image, m0902042a?
MOC m0902042 Browse Page.

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Selected Portions from m0902042a -- Click for regular size view.
Full View of m0902042, segment A

In the lichen image above you see isolated growths that are very similar in placement to the isolated structures in the Mars images below. Individual lichens are developing away from the large patch. The lichens are colonizing the rock. Unlike other plants, pieces of lichen that break off from the main plant have the ability to develop into new individuals. Or perhaps a better term would be collective, as this is a symbiotic life form of at least two to three species.

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Two from m0902042b
Full View of m0902042, segment B


Here is a link to an image and discription of the lichen, Phaeographis inusta
I do not have permission to use the image here. But see how it compares to the above selections from m0902042.

Also, consider how it compares to this image from m1001442a seen on page 3.


Lichens and moss (or mossy looking lichen) on Rock

Compare the texture of this rock with this cropped section of m0402115a

Full View m0402115a
Browse Page for m0402115


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- - Masss of Lichens on Rock - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In Grayscale - - - - - - -

This Earth rock, and its lichen guests, kind of reminds me of
Barnacle Bill!
(Lichen Bill?)

In looks, at least. Pathfinder's analysis of Barnacle Bill showed no signs of life - past or present. But then, there were many uncertainties in the Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer results.

Some links to Pathfinder Science Results - Barnacle Bill
Analysis of Martian Samples by the Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer: Preliminary Results Elements
The Chemical Composition of Martian Soil and Rocks Returned by the Mobile Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer
WATER HISTORY, ROCK COMPOSITION AMONG LATEST FINDINGS A YEAR AFTER MARS PATHFINDER
Mars Pathfinder Web Site at the End of the Mission

Reading
these articles, one can see that the results are in no way final. Some things are uncertain. For instance, there is the interference from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And microbial life might not be in the rock itself, but in the windblown dust, which the APXS did not take into account when analyzing individual rocks. Then there is the visual vs. the statistical. We saw very different kinds of rocks in the images, but the APXS gave a rather homogenous chemical analysis of the entire area.

If
there is life at Ares Vallis (the Pathfinder landing site) it is rock - fossilized. There does not seem to be anything now in that dry dusty part of Mars that supports life. But there is water at Mars' polar regions. The Mars images shown in this essay are of the south polar regions in Martian south polar spring. Everyone seems to agree that the images show a thawing south pole. And everyone agrees that water is necessary for life (as we know it).

Is
it possible something is blooming there in the Martian spring? Is some alien life form rising from dormancy and exploiting the substances in the vapors of the sublimating ice?

What
would that life form be? Can anything like Earth lichens exist on Mars? Earth lichens obtain most of their sustenance from the air. Would Martian lichen use the Martian atmosphere in the same way? Earth lichens fix nitrogen. What would Martian lichens fix? There is only 2.7% nitrogen in the Mars' atmosphere. That is less than Venus and more than we know Earth had before life began. Nitrogen is essential for life on Earth. Earth's atmosphere now has something like 77-79% nitrogen. Is nitrogen essential to life Mars?

Earth
lichens survive by photosynthesis. Would that be necessary for Mars lichens as well? Mars is further away from the sun than Earth. It has no water in its atmosphere, except perhaps every now and then when it is dark and the sun has not had a chance to fry water vapor clouds, or when the season is right and the ice is melting. Mars' atmosphere is deadly to plant life, as we know it. To survive plant life needs different tactics.

Perhaps
survival depends on something like - or exactly like - chemosynthesis. Chemosynthesis on Earth happens at the deep-sea volcanic vents and in volcanic mud pools found in places like Yellowstone National Park, places where temperatures are extremely hot - where we used to think nothing could live. But some things do indeed live there. Mars is cold - very cold. Is there a hidden energy source beneath the icy surface - geothermal vents and hot springs perhaps?

Even
Earth lichens need an environment warm enough for moisture to be available in the air. Is it warm enough in spring at the Martian poles for Martian lichen to exist? How warm does it have to be for Martian lichen (or something similar to lichen) to come out of dormancy, and spread over the landscape? We would, after all, be looking at an alien life form, existing on its own planet, under its own terms - not Earth life, and possibly not life as we know it.

Mars
is cold. Mars is farther from the sun than Earth. But, Mars is darker than Earth. Therefore it should retain more heat than our watery reflective planet. But it does not seem to do that - not via the atmosphere. Where would an energy source capable of sustaining life come from? Is it warm below the polar ice - warm enough for microbacteria to engage in chemosynthesis, warm enough for surface life? Are there geothermal vents and hot springs below the ice?

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These images are from the bottom section of Mars Global Surveyor MOC Image m0902042.
Click for larger window

Is spring warmth breaking up the ice here?

Is this a shoreline with very clear evidence of past water levels?
Dirty ice, or microbacterial growth?
Martian lichen?
What might be living in those icy pools?

See the page, Spring Breakup

Note
the rather foggy surface of the "shoreline" image above. There is possibly some "fog" in the other image as well. Is this just from the sublimation of dry ice? Or could it possibly be some kind of fog - water - created by organisms living in that pool? Is life creating its own local atmosphere - oxygen, nitrogen, and methane? Oxygen is a volatile gas, easily combined with other elements. It takes life to keep it stable in the atmosphere. Life survives because it is opportunistic. Life will carve a niche out of anything and everything it can grab a hold on, no matter how tenuous that hold may be. We are beginning to see the possibilities of life everywhere as we explore our own planet's deepest seas, volcanic muds, coldest deserts, and the sunless chemistry of caves.
Lacking
the protective blanket of greenhouse gases that Earth has, could the ultra violet radiation constantly bathing the surface of Mars be a valuable source of energy and nutrition for Martian organisms? Living things on Earth use a certain amount of ultra violet to their benefit - for instance, the manufacturing of vitamin D. The question really isn't about whether or not an organism could use it. The question is: why wouldn't an organism on Mars fully utilize all that abundant energy coming from ultra violet radiation?
Life
needs water. Where and how it gets water really doesn't matter. Organisms on Mars probably get water from below. But organisms can make their own microclimate at the surface by directly causing ice nucleation. In his book, The Ages of Gaia, James Lovelock talks about bacteria synthesizing macromolecules that can induce freezing in water droplets, essentially making their own rain and oxygen. By synthesizing macromolecules in the sublimating carbon dioxide ice, can Martian bacteria do the same? Most likely they can. Most likely they do. Most likely they have to.
These micro ecosystems, if they exist, have probably been doing this centuries. We may be witnessing a planet coming to life - not a dead or dying world.


Page Five - maybe more later

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-- Image Credits --

Mars Global Surveyor MOC Images -PDS Images Planetary Image Atlas