Slashdot Mirror
UCLA Scientist Discovers Plate Tectonics On Mars
Reader SternisheFan links to a press release at UCLA, and excerpts from it another bit of Mars news: "For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet's surface, also exists on Mars. 'Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse of how the early Earth may have looked and may help us understand how plate tectonics began on Earth,' said An Yin, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and the sole author of the new research."
...for the followup papers by other scientists examining his findings before I make a conclusion. I have a friend who actually is a planetary geologist and focuses most of his attention on Mars, and I haven't heard any of this from him.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I always found it odd that Mars' southern hemisphere would be so much higher than the northern one. This discovery means it might be simply a supercontinent that will be, in spite of its size, a transient[*] feature.
I'd like to hop on a time machine, go forward 200 years and read up a book on the geology of Mars. I wonder if they'll name previous continents (assuming they can be determined) by a system that uses names from famous Mars-related stories. The first bunch of continents named after features in the John Carter of Mars stories, another bunch taken straight from Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, et cetera.
[*] In a geological time scale, of course.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
Maybe we now know what happened to those canals... damn earthquakes!
Or would they be marsquakes?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I would guess the exact opposite. What I've read is that the theory is that Mars lost its atmosphere and electromagnetic field due to the core of Mars cooling and solidifying. IIRC it's core stopped spinning or slowed as well.
Shouldn't this mean that as Mars ages tectonics slow to a halt? For example, if the layers under the Earth's crust cooled, solidified and stopped rotating, isn't the theory that Earth will end up looking a lot like Mars in the far away future?
One would expect this with Martian vulcanism.
What the hell happened to Venus? It's about 80 percent of the earth's mass. Why on Venus wouldn't it have a plate tectonics? Just because you can't see it happen doesn't mean it's not there.
"For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth."
Why would anybody that is a legitimate scientist think that? They might not think any place else has evidence of it yet, but that's distinct from believing it exists nowhere else.
While the existence of tectonics on Mars is interesting in its own right, the really fascinating question is whether it is still continuing today. Yin seems to jump to the conclusion that it does without much data to back it up. I would like to see some measurements examining Martian tectonic movements. It shouldn't be that hard, we can already do that with centimeter precision here on Earth. If Mars turns out to be tectonically active, that would mean it still has a hot liquid mantle and it's not the cold dead planet we tought it was.
The reason why we have precise measurements is because we have 30 satellites in extremely precise orbits that are carefully measured and corrected, which broadcast GPS signals all day long. There is really no practical way of getting a system like that in place now or in the foreseeable future on Mars.
It would beg the question of where the magnetic field whent though...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Forgive me, IANAPG but didnt Mars cease to be geologically active long ago. Which is why we see no active volcanoes and very little atmosphere (no shielding from solar winds). Also, if earth is the only planet with active tectonics why is Venus literally covered with active volcanoes and an atmosphere thousands of times denser than earth?
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
Its used to earthquakes.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
I would like to see some measurements examining Martian tectonic movements. It shouldn't be that hard, we can already do that with centimeter precision here on Earth.
No problem, Boss. I'll just pop over and get those for you. Back in time for tea!
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Venus also has volcanic activity without a magnetic field.
The reason why we have precise measurements is because we have 30 satellites in extremely precise orbits that are carefully measured and corrected, which broadcast GPS signals all day long. There is really no practical way of getting a system like that in place now or in the foreseeable future on Mars.
It probably wouldn't be that hard to get a system with LORAN level resolution now. There's just no use for it. Any rovers around now can just use existing Mars orbiters to get a position.
Hasn't it long been assumed that Mars had plate tectonics in the past? Because it's a smaller planet and lacks a large moon, its mantle has cooled and plate tectonics has stopped. Then its core cooled, its magnetic field weakened, and its atmosphere was blown off by solar wind...
Unless I missed something, it looks like this is based off of geographical features looking like features on Earth. Is this really definitive?
That's not that astounding of a claim to make. There are only a handful of antes in our solar system that are rocky, and there wasn't necessarily evidence to support plate tectonics on those other planets. Now, if the claim had been that there weren't plate tectonics anywhere else in the galaxy, then yes, that would be quite a bold claim.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
THAT'S what you'd do if you could travel into the future?
You must be fun at parties.
Its what? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
marsquakes
We knew of plate tectonics long before we had that kind of precision. OTOH, we knew of it because of intensive geological explorations.... which is also impractical on Mars for the near future.
Why not just support human life extension research? Or at least human reversible hibernation... Time travel is not possible.
Of course it's possible, but only forward, and only at the rate of 1 second per second.
This space unintentionally left blank.
The elevation map showing the alleged "split" crater in the valley is not very convincing. Is there other evidence that the two halves are really a crater, or is the claimant over-matching faint patterns?
Over-matching faint patterns has a long track record with Mars, where they used to "see" linear canals thru Earth telescopes. Turned out to be observers who were over-connecting the dots.
Table-ized A.I.
Why would anybody that is a legitimate scientist think that?
Because in serious science, being wrong is not a crime. In fact, the first person to state "we have no evidence for X, so we must assume it does not exist" often get's the credit for setting some student or other off to prove him wrong. Just remember, the true crime is being "not even wrong". Try to be wrong at least once a day; then you might learn something. The only condition is that you have to realise that you were wrong.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Time travel is not possible.
How do you know that?
Why not just support human life extension research?
Because this kind of research 1% highly speculative, unlikely to be developed in my lifetime technology, although one that could be the greatest single technological advance ever, and the other 99% is bullshit sold by con artists
And here's the key: I'm not sure I'm qualified to tell the difference between the two.
Imagine what the scientific establishment would have said back in 1912, had Alfred Wegener proposed this then.
I've been working on a time machine. I've got it to the stage where it can make small jumps into the future. Right now it can go one minute ahead. You just get in, sit in the chair, and press the button. It's not (yet) instantaneous, though. It takes about 60 seconds to complete the trip. I just need some more funding. Look for my kickstarter project soon. If it passes the $100K level I'll put in a more comfortable chair, which would open the way to longer journeys.
Why not just support human life extension research? Or at least human reversible hibernation... Time travel is not possible.
Of course it's possible, but only forward, and only at the rate of 1 second per second.
Well, you can go forwards as much as you like, up to a limit since your craft can never reach light speed since it has mass. Just accelerate in an arc away from the earth at a constant 1 or 2 G on a trajectory that will eventually bring you back to the start for 10 years. When you land you've travelled much more than 10 years into the future.
I don't usually reply to my own posts but here's another interesting thought.
These thoughts are giving me the willies. Time to get my kids off this doomed rock.
One Earth plate tectonic boundaries are defined by lines of earthquakes. One of the Viking probes had seismometer. But it did not see motion other than the wind.
Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics.
Yeah, fuck you mars, you're crappy tectonics aren't nowhere near as goods as ours, and don't even think about copying our plate movements because we're patenting them.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
He knows his stuff, even if he came from U$C. :)
Yeah, right.
If , as is generally agreed, Mars is somewhat older than Earth, and was stripped of it's atmosphere and lost it's magnetic core in it's death throes, then it's plate tectonics wouldn't be at a "primitive" stage, but an advanced state of entropy, essentially.. having slowed down due to cooling of the interior of the planet.. Since it's generally conceded that the first two conditions on Mars occurred, then what kind of scientist would compare the third condition (plate tectonics) to an *early* stage? It's ludicrous..
I'm also a planetary geophysicist and generally agree with your assessment. I also note that the author is a terrestrial geologist. This is as far as I can tell, his first foray into planetary science, and so he may not be so familiar with the planetary literature. Plate tectonics has previously been hypothesized on Mars (Sleep, 1994). The press release suggests that somehow, for forty years, no one has seriously looked at Valles Marineris. It clearly has a tectonic origin, but I don't see evidence for plate tectonics.
You can orbit a super-massive black hole (like the one at the galactic center) and slow down time significantly.... but at the cost of not just massive exposure to radiation but also tidal forces that would rip your legs and head off your body even while technically outside of the event horizon (thus still in theory capable of leaving).
Travel at 99.9x% of the speed of light has other similar health risks where the background cosmic radiation can through blue shifts in frequency turn into deadly radiation... much less any star light that was formerly in the visible light bands when traveling at that speed. Collision avoidance of any "dark" objects would be tricky too, like any wandering comets or asteroids much less planet sized objects in interstellar space. Heck, smashing into something the size of a walnut would not be pretty, although that would be mostly a part of that same radiation hazard at that speed.