Posted on 11/25/2009 10:02:25 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The discovery could offer clues in the search for life on Mars and beyond, researchers said in October at a meeting of the Geological Society of America... The microbes were found on the walls of lava tubes in Hawaii, New Mexico, and the Portuguese Azores islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean... The finds include "a lovely blue-green ooze dripping out of the [cave] ceiling in Hawaii; a vein of what looks like a gold, crunchy mineral in New Mexico; and, in the Azores, amazing pink hexagons," said Diana Northup, a geomicrobiologist at the University of New Mexico... Lava tubes form when molten lava seeps out beneath a solidifying flow from an active volcano, leaving long caves in its wake. Since 1994 Northup and colleagues have been seeking out unusual deposits in caves, including lava tubes, and putting them under a microscope or testing them for DNA. Her team's discoveries add to a growing body of evidence that lava tubes on other planets might be the best places to look for signs of extraterrestrial life, said Saugata Datta, a geochemist from Kansas State University who was not involved in the work.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Bright orange blotches coat the lava-rock walls of Gruta do Carvão in São Miguel, one of the Portuguese Azores islands, in an undated picture. The ooze is among several examples of colorful mineral deposits that are actually mats of waste excreted by microbes living on cave walls, researchers said in October 2009. [Photograph courtesy Guy Caniaux]
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It is possible that somebody reading this will be amongst the first humans to set foot on Mars since antediluvian times.
Do not go to that place unarmed!! Granted it is hellishly unlikely, but it is not beyond the realm of the possible that you might meet up with some rat or cockroach inside some tunnel or megalith or something and, due to the low gravity, that rat or cockroach might be ten feet long, and dialing 9-11 will not help. Just WAY better to have the FAL or 45/70 on hand and never need it than to need it and not have it...
Latrines, microbe poop, what next? Very scatological pings for a Thanksgiving day, Civ.
I think I saw a dress on M, my belle, O with this pattern and these colors.
There’s probably microbe poop on everything anyway. ;’)
On Thanksgiving, that situation could be very gravy, er, grave. BISCUITS! PUMPKIN PIE! Oh geez, I’m in a food coma even after midnight...
In this house? Yeah, microbe poop and cat hair, all over everything.
The turkey still tasted great yesterday. Peas have a great day today when you get over your food coma.
Lima little groggy even now.
Have you tried stuffing down a little Pepto Bismol?
Not this thyme?
It was a cloves call though.
A sage decision.
I rosemary as the legendary Old King Coel after I got done stuffing myself.
Were you parsley stuffed or completely?
Oops, I answered me instead of you. Anyway...
Were you parsley stuffed or completely?
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I think I overdid, I felt herbal. And later that day I had to cilantro my realtor.
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Okay, I just made that up to stick another pun in there.
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