THE 'FORESTS OF MARS': BIOLOGY OR EXOTIC GEOLOGY?

by Paul Anderson

April 4, 2001

Web version of this report with correlating images:
http://www.geocities.com/erasproject/marsforest.html

The thousands of images returned by the Mars Global Surveyor and previous probes to the Red Planet have yielded many anomalous features over the years, some of which are possibly indicative of abundant water and even life, either past or present.

Recently, some new images have come to light, courtesy of Graham Orme, taken by MGS in 2000 near the Martian south pole, of more unusual landforms which for all the world look like large-scale vegetation of some sort or possibly ancient coral as has also been suggested. Is this really evidence of macro life, past or present, or just another form of unusual geology, which Mars is becoming known for (remembering that while Mars is the closest planetary equivalent ot Earth in our solar system, along with Europa, it is still _not_ the Earth). If 'plant life', it would appear to be more of a ground-covering variety, albeit large-scale, than a 'forest of trees' per se, but the images are provocative nonetheless. Or could we be looking at the remains of Martian coral reefs? Shadowing in the images does reveal the formations to apparently have some relative height. The radial 'branching' from the centre outward in each 'bush' is of particular interest, giving these objects their distinct plant-like appearance. Coral reefs on Earth, such as off the coast of Australia, can show a similar transition, from isolated "islands" of coral to a denser, continuous bed. Other possibilities which TEP / TMI is looking into include something akin to seagrass beds (some species of which have been found fossilized, dating back to the late Cretaceous period) or even Mangrove forests on Earth. One aspect of seagrass plants is the extensive underground root / rhizome system which anchors them to their substrate. Perhaps a similar fossilized system could become exposed over time?

One aspect of these formations to be considered is size. The original NASA scaled image posted on the MSSS web site is approximately 2.83 km by 20.46 km in size, making the one large 'bush' near the top left hand corner of the picture approximately one-third of the width, or .94 km across (.6 miles or 3,168 feet). Single plants of this size are hard to imagine perhaps, making the 'coral' analogy more likely, composed of many individual plants spread out over a larger area, _if_ these formations are biology related. On Earth, seagrass beds can cover large areas, up to a few thousand square km, as can coral, etc. Of course, anything akin to fossilized remains of seagrass or coral would imply there was a standing ocean of water at some point in the past, of which there is other growing evidence in recent years from the MGS and other probes. These analogies are put out simply as possibilities, for others to follow up on.

Other examples of possible Martian vegetation have been found before, including patches on sand dunes and in craters,etc. which look very much like large fungal-type colonies or smaller bushes (see Mac Tonnies' Cydonian Imperative web site below for additional reports on these), and even greenish coloured patches on the rocks near the Viking 1 lander in 1976 which changed pattern and colour during each Martian year as documented by Gilbert Levin of Biospherics.

These photographs are among those reportedly referenced by Arthur C. Clarke in recent weeks as possible evidence of 'large-scale life on Mars' (see articles listed below). Such features may indeed have 'normal', albeit distinctly Martian, geological explanations as NASA insists. Only additional, high-resolution photographs of these and similar landforms or a landing in these areas will answer these questions (Malin, are you listening?).

Original NASA / MSSS images:

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/images/M08/M0804688.html
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/nonmaps/M08/M0804688.gif

Related articles / web sites:

Clarke's Believe it or Not
http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/clarke_believe_010227.html

How I helped to Save Star Trek: It Turned Out to Forecast our Future
http://www.times-archive.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/09/16/timopnope01001.html

Sir Arthur C. Clarke Cracks The Tip of the Mars Iceberg
http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/March2001/29MAR01a1/29mar01a1.htm

The Cydonian Imperative: Vegetation on Mars?
http://www.geocities.com/macbot/cydonia.html

A Geo-Biological Mars?
http://yowusa.com/Archive/March2001/09MAR01a/09mar01a.htm

Life on Mars! (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/

Colour and Feature Changes at Mars Viking Lander Site (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/color/color.htm

'Mars: The Living Planet" (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie2/reprint106a.htm

Dr. Gilbert V. Levin's August 1997 SPIE Paper (Levin / Biospherics)
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie/spiehtml.htm

Coral Reef, Seagrass and Mangrove Forest Links:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/global_issues/coral_reefs/websites.html

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