There is no lumber on Mars

[Ediacara]

There has been a really lengthy thread concerning a photo taken by Opportunity supposedly showing a piece of lumber. The photo can be seen in the original thread.

If we look at the "lumber" close up, and lighten the photo a little bit we see something amazing. It's a rock. And not just any rock, but a perfectly ordinary piece of sandstone, just like all the surrounding pieces of rock.



There are lines on the "lumber" that match the spacing and direction of the laminae in adjacent pieces of sandstone perfectly. From weathering patterns on nearby rocks, we can see that the regional dip of the laminae is around 30-40 degrees, and dipping away from the camera. Let me illustrate what is going on in this photo, by first putting lines of section through the "lumber":



Let's look at A-A'. Note, that in all photos, orange spaces are where dust has filled cracks.



Now, let's look at B-B', which crosses the "lumber." What's obvious in close ups is the far end of the lumber is firmly attached to (and part of) the substrate, and is dipping at the same angle and direction as the laminae. It is raised a little bit from the surrounding rock, but since the sun is in front of is, a huge, dark shadow forms making it not only look darker than the surrounding sandstone blocks, but above them:



Now the last cross section, from C-C', is pretty similar to what's seen in A-A'.



This type of feature is not at all uncommon, and because of odd cicumstances and placement of the rover and the sun at the time of the photo, this small rock knob ended up looking kind of like a board.

[darkism]

1. * to Martians: Need some wood?

[Sub Atomic]

3. heh. you said wood

[Shakespeare]

2. I still say it's part of Jesus' cross!

And he went and saved the Martians, too. But don't tell the freepers they'll have to share the afterlife with a bunch of little green men! ;-)

[tk2kewl]

6. maybe thats why we can't find any martians...

they've all been raptured already

[Lisa]

4. just as well. we haven't resolved the Canada-US softwood lumber issue yet

But it IS neat to see that kind of rock on Mars, close up. (There was a time when people thought it was all igneous and there wasn't any kind of depositional rock there at all ...)

[LeftCoast]

5. Thanks for the clarification

I can hardly wait for the wack-jobs to start posting that you're part of a government conspiracy to cover up the "real truth"...ie, that lumber has been found on Mars. LOL

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Moderator]

8. kick n/t

[fob]

9. There's SANDSTONE ON MARS!?!

How did it get there?

Is that where the Easter Island statues came from?

How come that "sandstone" is in the shape of a boat? No, not a boat, an ARK!

Seriously though, I think I follow your explanation, I just don't get how the shadow created by "the odd ci(r)cumstances and placement of the rover and the sun at the time of the photo" caused a rectangular object to "appear" given the description above.

[eyepaddle]

11. take a look at the

smaller cracks to the left and right of the "lumber" particularly the wedge shaped piece about half way up on the right edge of the frame above. Notice how the color of any vertical cracks matches the color of the "lumber?" The color appears to be very influenced by orientation of the sun/rover/rock orientation.

GENERAL NOTE: I just think this is a good thread to illustrate geological thinking/approaches. I hope others enjoy! :)

plus I just wanna give it a

:kick:

[librechik]

16. yes, doesn't sandstone imply oceans?

in my opinion, this object remains anomalous, like so much else I've seen photographed there. Mars Orbiter stuff from MSS is really fascinating and vast.

[eyepaddle]

18. It can imply oceans

it doesn't have to though. As was pointed out by DinoBoy in the other thread sand stone is a grain size classification--any lithified (basically: turned to rock) material with grains between 2mm and I believe 0.065mm (sorry my sed classes were a WHILE ago) is considered sandstone--regardless of chemical/mineral compostion or means of deposition. On earth most Sandstones (SS) ARE depostied sub-aqueously (below water) but not all. A good example are dune deposits, you can see these in Zion National Park the yellow/orange with the prominent "criss-cross" markings are dune depsoits which were deposited sub-aerially, also known as "Aeolian deposits."

I personally have little doubt that there were LARGE bodies of water on Mars at one time in its past, some of those photos do like an awful lot like shorlines don't they? Plus, the mineralogical data from the rovers pretty much nailed down that there was at least some liquid water, however things like water depth, duration etc., have not yet been fine-tuned as it were. The current state of knowledge is "we know there was some water in at least one spot; it looks like it might be widespread--but this has not been confirmed as of yet." Part of the process of science is not making grand claims with out an almost airtight case--think of it like going to court; If you go in half-assed you'll wind up looking foolish. I'd imagine if you talked to most NASA Mars scientists they'd tell you they believe there was water in large amounts, and there is a good chance for past life--most would probably also hope for at least some smidgeon of current life, it's just that as of right now we don't have all the evidence we need.

To address your specific point: is the object anomalous? Possibly, however there are strong reasons to think it in fact isn't. YOu may rest assured that they will keep an eye out though. :)

[spanone]

10. Still looks like wood to me.

[Jesus H. Christ]

12. I saw a cloud today that looked like a bunny.

I'm pretty sure there aren't giant puffy bunnies flying through the air.

[Solly Mack]

14. You mean I toss carrots in the air for nothing?

Damn!

[MGKrebs]

21. Umm, cloud bunnies only eat cloud carrots.

Everybody knows that.

[Solly Mack]

23. oops!

heh

[idiosyncratic]

13. Me too . . .

:silly:

[gulfcoastliberal]

15. Got any pictures of this phenomenon on earth?

Sandstone is most abundant, so I'm sure there's plenty of examples out there.

[stackhouse]

17. hmmmmmm????????

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:

[librechik]

19. Maybe it's left over from building this

notice the ruined city. It's hard to miss.

[Ediacara]

20. You mean the blurry photo of rocks?

[Must_B_Free]

22. BWAAAH!!

I get the same thing when I tap my magic window... I must be ruining the cities in there :crazy:

[Kabelplink]

24. Heh...

It actually does look like a piece of wood.

[InvisibleBallots]

25. Oh really?

How do the Martians build their houses then? Huh? ;)

[derby378]

26. Possible Virgin Galactic song...

On Mars, there is no beer
That's why we drink it here

:silly: