Hard Evidence Of Liquid Water On Mars Today
Pictures of active geyser vents and wet soil
Without a doubt, these images show wet soil and runoff. The water wells up from below the rocks and washes out soil. The presence of many such geysers and wash areas is clear in these following images. I will start with the various wash areas first.
| In this image from Opportunity,
Sol 073, you can see wash areas. The water has sorted out the
smaller particles and carried them along, while larger fossil spherules
have remained stuck in place.
This is the same mechanism (and exact same appearance) that is seen on Earth in the desert after a rain. Click the image for a larger view. |
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| In this image from Opportunity,
Sol 088, you can also see a very clear wash area. The water
emerges at the top left of the image and runs off downhill to the right
and center. The soil looks muddy and darker, and the finer grains in
the wash have a lighter appearance.
Compare this with the image above and you can see that this is true there as well. Click the image for a larger view. |
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| Opportunity,
Sol 114- another very clear wash pattern with the geyser itself
visible at the edge of the rock.
This pointed rock is covering a geyser and the outflow has hurled the larger fossils back to the left. The water has run off to the right of the top edge of the stone. On the stone above it you can also see how the water has washed the fossils into linear structures. Water running down over the upper stone slab has cleaned the area of silt and mud and has left lines of the fossils and the characteristic wash pattern outlining the stone's edges. Click the image for a larger view. |
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| This is the close up view
of the above image. Circled in white you can see the rippled mud
left from the ejected water. In blue are the fossil spherules that
are coated with thin mud produced when the geyser erupted.
The green circle shows the finer particles that separated out in the standing water and settled as the puddle dried up. The red area shows clean fossil spherules that have been washed by the spray from the geyser. They are dark gray and shiny as opposed to the mud coated and dull spherules circled in blue. This is a small active geyser vent that has erupted within a few days time at most. Now, how many rock slabs exhibit slots or holes beneath them? Water erupting or welling up from beneath, either like a spring or a more energetic form such as a geyser, will produce these features. Let's see how many a quick check of the images will reveal. |
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