Same Sand
Within the vesicles of the older red lava, one finds small
deposits of sand. This appears to be the same sand that is later captured
within the gray lava, along with the small pieces of the red lava.
Although 36 million years passed between the two lava flows, not much seemed to
happen to the sand or the lava. Thus, we
apparently see a situation where
materials remained on the surface for over 50 million years and basically
nothing happened to it. Mars is the one place where we know there are very
old volcanoes and where very little has happened in the last 50 million years.
This may not seem very important, but part of my evidence
of Martian origin is the length of time that this material has apparently laid
on the surface without much weathering or other erosion
.
On Earth, material is quickly eroded but what we see in the Frass Meteorite is
material that has apparently survived millions of years on the surface with very
little change. This implies Mars rather than Earth as a place of creation
and storage without change for such a long period of time.
Also, we sand on the outer parts of the meteorite that is
melted into the meteorite. Every single
surface
of the gray and red lava rocks are covered with this layer of sand. In
places on the exterior, the fusion crust itself is made up of sand, stuck to the
outer surface. In the picture to the left, one can see the sand that was
present in each of the vesicles. This sand was slightly stuck to the lava
rock, but when the meteorite came through our atmosphere, this sand really
melted hard to the lava rock. The sand looks normal, but can not be
dislodged from the lava rock, even when one uses a small steel probe.
Also, this picture clearly shows the fusion crust. It is most evident near
the bottom right, where the shiny fusion crust is reflecting the light more than
other parts of the meteorite.
On
other aspect of the Frass Meteorite sand is the amount of volcanic material that
is in the sand. Since all of the walls of the Frass Meteorite are very
delicate, they break very easily. Assuming other rocks on Mars are equally
delicate, this would account for the amount of small particles of lava that is
mixed with rounded silicate particles, one normally thinks of as "sand."
See picture section for more pictures.