Hi folks, some information gleaned from other forums.
The Martian fossil that we have all seen photos of is looking a little more interesting than before.
It seemes that life on Earth has the curious ability to concentrate lighter isotopes. For instance, the ratios of C12 to C13 and C14 are increased. Mineral grains in ancient rocks were found to be ancient bug fossils, a microscopic grain of the mineral apatite had a small grain of carbon material in its core. The core was several percent higher in C12 that the surrounding rock. This indicates that it was was living material. Well, the same has been found to be the case with the Martian meteorite fossil. It is higher in C12 than it should be. To me, this is indicative of life processes, once taking place. If anyone has any other info regards this, please tell.

I thought that Martian meteor didn't really have any fossils in it. Are we both talking about the one from about '95 or am I misunderstanding?

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"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

G'day Kai,
yes mate we are, unless I went severely astray.
The image I keep seeing a snap of on Discovery channel.
It looks like a worm. It is usually a pic in false colour with the worm a menacing red or green colour, and the rock a bit different.
Search the archives of "The Meteorite List".
It is an e-mail list I subscribe to.
The appropriate folks blether about such things there.
I had no knowledge of C12 isotopic ratios in life being different before I read the thread over many e-mails.

Kevin.

Yes, I was thinking of something else, many appologies.
According to Encarta, the 1995 Antarctica meteorite contained possible fossils of nanobacteria, organisms not even very well understood on Earth. The wormlike structures are the possible bacteria under high magnification. But I didn't hear anything about bug fossils.

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Please, if you're going to discuss something you've seen, provide a better pointer to it. Don't get us curious and then tell us all to go search for it. Thanks.

Is this it: Wikipedia: ALH84001?

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No, that is the one KaiYeves asked about.

But I don't know which one he means, I haven't bothered to search for it on a vague clue either

What other processes, besides life, can concentrate carbon isotopes in that way?

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I'm not catching anything in recent news about odd carbon isotope ratios in some bit of Mars. I must ask vk3ukf what is looking good? What specifically have you seen sufficient to express your opinion to us that some Martian fossil is looking good? I.e.: cite, please.

Is it instead a conflation of a couple things? There was the very recent news about organic building blocks (NB: building blocks, not what they build). For instance: Carnegie Institute: Building blocks of life formed on Mars (December 11, 2007)

And, years ago, scientists noticed a carbon isotope ratio in the ALH84001 meteorite different than what one would expect for an Earth rock (and some were identical, indicating contamination). I suppose that's not surprising if the rock came from Mars and spent time on Earth. It's evidence that at least some carbon they looked at in ALH84001 was from Mars and not Earth, and that's good to know. But, like I said, it's not new, for instance Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology: Martian Organic Matter in ALH84001? (June 1999)

Is there some more recent news about the ratios? Some different results or new interpretations?

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OK, I had to try to dig this one up. (Please, please, make it easier for us and provide links to the facts you think we might be interested in. Please?)

This looks like it's about Earth rocks -- not entirely clear from your statements. Is it like: Discover Magazine: Older, not better - carbon-isotope study of Greenland rocks suggested life existed 3.85 billion years ago? (April 1997)

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Apologies on the lack of references, I shall try harder.
I was falling of my perch at the time.


Originally read in an e-mail I received on,

Meteorite-list Digest, Vol 49, Issue 56
Tuesday, 25 December 2007 6:59:08 AM

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Meteorites and Neutron releases inhyper-velocity impacts
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/me...er/040936.html
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Meteorites and Neutron releases in hyper-velocity impacts
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/me...er/040935.html
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Building Blocks of Life Formed on Mars (ALH84001)
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/me...er/040621.html
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C14, ALH8401, and martian meteorites
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/me...er/040940.html
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The December archives by subject.

http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/me...r/subject.html

May I suggest interested parties sign up to this very informative e-mail list.

http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list

Best to get posts as a daily digest, lest you get flooded.

The entire archives can be found here,

http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/


Hoping this doesn't prove to require a cut lunch, there is a bit to read through.

Cheers, Kevin.

----------------------

Well, yeah, there is. Cool. Thanks for the links. It looks like you had given enough clues for me to hit on sources of several of the ideas.

I'm not interested in a deep reading to see if they got to the ratio issue -- that in the olden days, a decade ago, some samples of ALH84001 had a peculiar carbon-isotope ratio for most Earth rocks, but that it was normal for many meteors that whack Earth and could simply be evidence of the same kind of meteors whacking Mars. Without a more scholarly, persuasive presentation, I believe I'll stand pat: ain't nothin' new making a Martian fossil look any more good. (I'll look at any specific new facts that you think I should, though, if cited.)

So, I don't see anything new with a very quick scan. Anyone else interested enough to probe in depth (knowing that if there is new data about isotope ratios, it's probably only speculation presented within the mailing list, because it doesn't appear to turn up in regular news sources)?

Thanks, again, for digging up those links. It really helps to know the sources when you seek commentary upon their contents.

Edit: looked a little bit more, at the most intriguing title:

That appears likely to be the principle article that inspired this topic.

That's just wrong. It doesn't mandate that there are fossils in ALH84001.

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im not a huge space guy, and so i knew nothing of these "fossils". its very interesting stuff! so, thanks for all the links!

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I want to live on mars!

No big.

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Hmm. Even without a technical understanding of the topics involved, I would be wary of throwing my weight behind this. The language used in this email (the same as quoted by 01101001) is far from technical, but more importantly, it is almost juvenile. Not that non-technical things aren't important, but it's poorly written by someone who first admits and then demonstrates that he has little or no grasp on the subject matter. Here is one example, I haven't read all the links, but this enough for me to tack a red flag on it. I'll read the rest to check, but making a claim like this...

...is indeed no small assumption. First off, he is dead wrong, but more on that in a minute. In context with the rest of the email this cries of someone talking out of something other than their mouth. Read the whole email at the link, it's short. Even in a press release or non-technical journal I would raise several eyebrows. As it is, I only have two, so I'll raise two.

But then he goes on to say...

That's not a bad question to ask (again, read the context), except you are trying to establish some sort of "I have a decent idea what's going on here" aura. Hmm. Doesn't float for me. Just...

*Shoves everyone off to go read the darn link above.

Ok, you back?

This paper, apparently from NASA is a little more believable. It basically says that for years scientists have debated the origin of the organic materials associated with the meteor. Now they think quite certainly that those molecules formed on Mars rather than being transported there or otherwise "infecting" the rock later.

I leave out the paragraph setting the following up, but this should sum the idea up nicely even without. Read the whole thing at the site for all the info.

Again, read the whole article.
----------
[snip]
And while I'm here, can I respond more directly to this quote from the first email.
This is dead wrong. From everything I understand, living things use C14 as they would C12 or C13. C14 is easier to detect due to it's instability and tendency to decay radioactively, but it is used all the same. In fact, we depend on organisms using C14 as they would any other Carbon atom for a little something known as "carbon dating". Modern medicine also uses radio isotopes and the body's interaction with them to aid various diagnoses and/or scans, but that is another story.

Enough on that, I digress too much.
[/snip]
------------

The page that is supposed to have the information is taken from here. There is a link on the 'six.pairlist' page as well. I would vouch for the information here, but the guy claiming the meteor indisputably contains fossils "and if you own a Martian meteor you may have the next fossil!" is quite off the deep end. At least as far as I'm concerned.

Sorry vk3ukf, but looks like it's not as exciting as you hoped. This is cool, very VERY cool, but a far cry from finding life itself. I mean, how sweet would it be if you could come home and say...Just for the record, I would recommend checking me on my info. I don't think I'm wrong, but it's a good habit to get into. I even cracked open my biology book for the snip despite being fairly confident on my understanding of basic bio-chemistry. Thanks for the links, btw--it makes it a ton faster to sort out a potential answer to your question if we don't have to fish half the internet to find the source.

In short, the guy claiming it is a fossil is full of it from both ends. He didn't start out right on something very basic and VERY checkable. I don't trust him to finish right on something more profound. 'Nuf said.

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None to speak of

Hmm.

I should add something else here. Not sure if it's an apology or not, but something.

Reading this one (the original I quoted as full of it), I think the author is in a debate with someone else. I've read several of the correspondences, and most use italics or ">>" to seperate what is the "claim" made by someone pushing an agenda, and what is a "refutation", "correction", or "explanation" from someone more educated.

It seems as though the author of article of interest (EP Grondine) may be the one correcting, and "Sterling" the pusher. In others Sterling is almost debating from a scientific side. Someone named "Jason" is also involved. It is clear he is viewed as an antagonist, but I'm not certain what parts are his. It's almost enough to give me a headache :P. Here is one exchange I read. The others are accesible if you're willing to poke around a bit.

The problem I've run into is, I'm not sure if the article in question about the C14 is a claim being made by Grondine or one he is simply commenting on. As I said, most of the other exchange pages I can figure out who is talking about what. Well, most of the time anyway. The one of interest to this thread I am not sure about, so to be completely honest I may have called the wrong guy an idiot. It is really not well sorted who and what and so on. If anyone can figure it out conclusively, my hat's off to you!

I apologise to the author should he read this thread, and please feel free to contact me if you are concerned. Methods of contact are available from every post, just click on the author's user name.

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None to speak of

Nice to see your curiosity in the subject mate. I too am looking for traces of life coming from outside..after reading your thread just visited http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c011.html Its interesting ..but still to add..that life don't need a proof. It is there.... only what needed is to get ready to join the adventure.

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LOST

There is a systematic difference in utilization of carbon isotopes by photosynthesis, however: carbon-12 is better utilized than the heavier isotopes. So the biosphere is relatively depleted in heavier isotopes. That leaves more heavy isotopes in the environment to participate in non-biological activities.
For this reason, the carbon-13 enrichment of limestone has been taken as a marker of biological activity in the environment in which it was laid down. We see it decrease during the "snowball earth" period, for instance, and increase again afterwards.
Presumably the author is making some reference to this isotopic preference.

Grant Hutchison