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A new analysis of the largest known deposit of carbonate minerals on Mars suggests that the original Martian atmosphere may have already lost most of its carbon dioxide by the era of valley network formation.
"The biggest carbonate deposit on Mars has, at most, twice as much carbon in it as the current Mars atmosphere," said Bethany Ehlmann of the California Institute of Technology and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena. "Even if you combined all known carbon reservoirs together, it is still nowhere near enough to sequester the thick atmosphere that has been proposed for the time when there were rivers flowing on the Martian surface."
Carbon dioxide makes up most of the Martian atmosphere. That gas can be pulled out of the air and sequestered or pulled into the ground by chemical reactions with rocks to form carbonate minerals. Years before the series of successful Mars missions, many scientists expected to find large Martian deposits of carbonates holding much of the carbon from the planet's original atmosphere. Instead, these missions have found low concentrations of carbonate distributed widely, and only a few concentrated deposits. By far the largest known carbonate-rich deposit on Mars covers an area at least the size of Delaware, and maybe as large as Arizona, in a region called Nili Fossae.
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But if the atmosphere was once thicker, what happened to it? One possible explanation is that Mars did have a much denser atmosphere during its flowing-rivers period, and then lost most of it to outer space from the top of the atmosphere, rather than by sequestration in minerals.
If Mars were losing its atmosphere to outer space, wouldn't we able to detect a trail of gas from the planet?
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:23AM
It's a figure of speech.
Yes, it is. And you don't know how to use it. Worse than that, you seem to have no intention of learning how to use it correctly.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday September 06 2015, @07:40AM
Yes, it is. And you don't know how to use it.
Um, sorry to bring this up, but just saying something like this does not remotely approach proving that it is so. In fact, if you were not so obviously frightened by my ponderous pedantry, you could just research the proper usage yourself and see that "No, it isn't!" and "Yes I do." We greeks more or less invented logic, you know. Further, since you appear to be as intelligent as the average Anthropogenic Global Warming denying Gamergater, in not all cases does common use succeed in changing language and establish correct usage. It can, as in the case of eggcorns (which is a mistaken substitution for "acorn"; yes, I knew you did not bother to look it up), destroy a language with meaningless pretended erudition. I much prefer honest slang.
And, it seems you have no intention of learning what the figure of speech actually means! It must have been you that George W Bush had in mind when he asked, "Is our children learning to put food on their families?"
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Sunday September 06 2015, @04:11PM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 07 2015, @06:04AM
"Oh, but this is Abuse! So sorry! You want room 12a, next door." (For those who do not get the reference, Monty Python, "The Argument Clinic") But seriously, sorry! Of course, since you were responding to me, I thought you must be a troglodyte attempting to force the incorrect meaning of "begs the question". Which did seem implausible, which was also why I kind of went off the deep end, the deep end of pedantry. (Wow, how far down does it go? Should we drop a philosopher? Ow, wait, a grammarian!). But seeing how you agreed with me when you could understand me, we are all well. Even the original transgressor has (or at least an AC bearing similar garb) admitted to the initial error and promised good behavior in the future, I think we can chalk the entire exchange up as a net gain. The atmosphere of Mars is still something of a mystery, and deniers gonna deny, but life goes on and language will persevere, with the efforts of Social Justice Grammarians! Ho! Hoe! Whore! See, it happens, if we do not pay attention.