Top Mars Exploration Scientists to Speak in Denver Tuesday, 9 November 2004

Geological Society of America press release

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I went. They gave a very nice overview of Mars. Showed some stuff I hadn't seen before like the maps of the crustal thickness that looked a lot like the Earth's continents. The overview included all the data from all the programs currently operating, including the ESA one.
ESA hopes to deploy their radar antennas next year; they said they were afraid of recontact. but I wonder if the long 40 meter tip to tip boom and 7 meter boom might also have some control stability concerns especially if there is partial deployment. The radar should be penetrating mto a few kilometers depth and possibly may indicate auquifers. But with just dipoles it can't have very good resolution. They think the rovers will operate for a long time more.
They took questions at the end.
Bob Zubrin asked the methane question. The answer was that there seems to be methane there not only from the PFS but also from ground measurements, but they considered it very contoversial to say it indicated life.
All the little kids that asked questions referred to the team as "you guys".

I'd guess there were several hundred to people in the audience. somebody said that the GSA attracted about 6,000 to the meeting.

Perhaps the most puzzling thing for the team is the existence of craters that have central mounds the smae height as the surrounding terrain. There is layering in the mounds that matches the layering in the surrounding sides of the craters. If the layers were built up over millions of years, then what caused the material to be removed from around the mounds? There were even some cases of layered mounds that were higher than the surroundings.

Also they found lots of salts in the layers around the rovers, but in answer to a question, there are no carbonates. Mostly sulfates, as though sulphuric acid had seeped up through the rocks and leached out the minerals to form sulfate salts.

Thanks for the report.

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