Are there any future plans to have a robot to look at sedimentry beds on Mars for fossils?

It seems all the probes are designed to look for life today; and as i see it nobody's expecting to find somthing crawling around up there, but i dont see that that means there never were (which would be far more interesting than finding some bacteria that may or may not have hitched a lift on the probe.)

Does anyone know much about the sedimentry richeness of Mars; Theres not much on wikipedia, but it seemed to suggest that the best places to look would be layers older than 4Ga; would fossils survive this long? i know the conitions are different on Mars (no current plate tectonics etc.) but the earliest unanimously accepted evidence of life on earth is just over 2Ga. Is there any chance of finding intact remains? how late on could life have survived on mars?



If we'd looked up at the sky back in the archean, would there have been a blue green marble?

__________________
_____________________________________________

I'm glad I was born in '86, I've seen a film about 1984 and it seems like it was a tough year to be alive.

207

Actually, it would take a pretty heavy duty rover to do that kind of work.
Fossils are much more likely to be buried. The rover would need to excavate- and then Gently Sift looking for fragile fossils.

As it is- even spirit or opportunity are capable of spotting something that might have been uncovered with weathering. However, weather isn't quite like it is here- over on Mars, and the odds of weathered Martian Bones poking out are slim.

That kind of work may have to wait until we can land on Mars and take up the task manually.

It's just that our rovers aren't that advanced so they can't do that kind of work presently. However, in a few decades...

__________________
All moderations in purple.

You ain't nobody 'til you've been banned.

MMmm..
Even in a few decades I wouldn't be placing bets. Advancement isn't the only problem. In fact, we currently have the technology to pull it off. It's the funding, the weight and the actual cost effectiveness.

See MentalAvengers thread about this. I can't remember the title... Goliath?
Yeah just ran a search on it. Check this thread out.
http://www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/t-65401.html

(Title) If you provide the rocket, I'm game!

__________________
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Over 99.9% of all living creatures on earth fail to become fossilised. I doubt if Mars was ever as fecund as Earth was/is. Finding a Martian fossil is going to be just a tad harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

__________________
Beer, the cause of and solution to, all lifes problems

Both MERs were sent to places thought to have sedimentary rocks. if the sediments had fossils large enough to be capture by the imaging systems we wouldbe able to see them. If this is not looking for fossils I don't know what is. Opportunity has found sedimentary rocks.

Jon

And according to woo woo's, fossils, plants, berries the madonna and BigFoot.

Spirit may have already found some fossils. The "Gertrude Weise" material had all the characteristics of diatomaceous earth, an opaline silica deposit formed from the silica shells or test of diatoms. Spirit could analyze the material but didn't have the capability to look for microscopic sized fossils
Jack

No, Spirit has photographed what lots of folks try to claim looks like fossils.
We also have a photo of Bigfoot too.

I think it would be tough to put an electron microscope on a rover. i suspect that is why they were at least thinking about some sort of sample return mission.

__________________
"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender