Talk:Martian spherules

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[edit] Merge?

The spherules were discovered through the agencies of the rovers, but their existence and their science are entirely independent of that fact. Therefore they warrant their own article. This article needs to be expanded, not merged. --Kbh3rdtalk 20:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It might make more sense to merge this with Concretion, which is, I believe the name of the actual geological phenomena. Quadpus 09:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps we should move most of the information based on the martian spherules from the Opportunity rover page and leave a "Main article:" link to the Concretion, with possibly a redirect from "Martian spherules". Radagast83 19:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I decided to be bold and do the initial merge myself, but if anyone wants to modify it further, like merge this with Concretion, as I'm not a scientist nor really aspire to be one I'll leave that in the hands of people more familiar with the details on that. Radagast83 20:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

At this time, I don't think it's 100% "known" how the Martian spherules form. So, I would vote against merging the spherules with a specific method of creation (Concretion) until such time as a definitive mechanism for creation is established... My 2c. I would however, support merging Blueberry rock into 'Martian spherules' since they address the same feature. I think Martian spherules is more accurate description, as "blueberries" was simple a nickname based upon the false-colorization of the image, which made them appear blue, despite being composed of hematite (more likely gray or reddish, rust-colored). Mgmirkin 18:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Since there hasn't been any dissenting discussion over the last month, and the move should be fairly uncontroversial, I've decided to take the initiative and merge Blueberry rock into Martian spherules. Though, since there really weren't any new or even sourced statements (the other article was only a few short, relatively uninformative lines in length), it was more of replacing the article with a REDIRECT to here. Hopefully this benefits the community in some way, by making sure that all paths lead to the right article. Previosly also added redirects from other common phrasings Martian blueberry, Martian blueberries, etc. So, hopefully we won't get any more duplicate copies cropping up and can focus on improving this article. Mgmirkin 15:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Also took out the MergeTo and MergeFrom tags from both pages as a house-keeping task. Cheers. Mgmirkin 15:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See Also

Have added 'Moqi Marbles' and 'Stone spheres of Costa Rica' to the 'See Also' section, sice these appear to be analogues to Martian Blueberries. IE, relatively perfect spheres of all sizes found all over the place. There have been similar spheres found in Southern Africa as well, I think, though no article is yet written up on them. If it were, I'd think it would be wise to add to the 'See Also' section as well. Mgmirkin 16:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor issue (clarification?)

"Not only are there spherules on the surface but they are also found deeper in the Martian soil. The difference between these and ones which were found at the surface was that they had a very shiny surface, that created strong glints and glares which made them appear shiny or polished."

I'm wondering, does the shiny surface remark refer to the spherules on the surface or under the ground? Perhaps we could address these two separately: The above-ground items being more dull, whereas the below-ground items being more shiny, or vice versa. That should help to clarify this statement. Yeah? Mgmirkin 23:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added several articles.

Added several articles on spherule generation via electric fields. Published papers, I assume peer reviewed, found on http://adsabs.harvard.edu. I assume this is sufficient notability for inclusion as references. Articles include: "Creating Quasi-Spherules from Molecular Material Using Electric Fields (Inverse EGD Effect)," "Attention: FULGURITE!" and "Plasma Generated Spherules." Mgmirkin 17:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

In order to

  • A) maintain neutrality
  • B) generally improve the article/references

I've added several additional referenced articles relating more generally to "spherules" and a comparison of formative processes and analogues. These articles include: "Morphological Investigations of Martian Spherules, Comparisons to Collected Terrestrial Counterparts," "Sedimentary Concretions vs. Impact Condensates: Origin of the Hematitic Spherules of Meridiani Planum, Mars" and "Ironstone Concretions - Analogs to Martian Hematite Spherules." Hopefully these references will help to improve the overall discussion of these interesting items, while not slanting discussion toward any one pet theory or another. I personally lean strongly toward the experiments done by CJ ransom in actually REPRODUCING spherules via electrical arc experiments. However, I won't slant the article toward that interpretation without published results. Though he did co-author one of the abstracts, and I ASSUME presented the findings at the conference to which the abstract was submitted. Though I haven't yet located a freely available copy of any additional materials yet. IF anyone is interested, www.thunderbolts.info did a write-up of his work here: Domed Craters on Mars (however, this being currently considered a "fringe" site, take it as you will with a grain of salt). Still, interesting results (with photos). I won't directly include that in the article though, since the corpus of their materials are not currently considered "academic." Mgmirkin 17:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] deleted irrelevant links

I deleted two articles on lunar spherules from the links page, since they don't have any obvious relevance to Martian spherules in size, composition, or method of formation. Geoffrey.landis 22:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)