Water Experiments
Water has played a significant role in the creation of the
Frass Meteorite and its contents. The
presence or absence of water tells us a great deal about the "life" of this
meteorite. Several water experiments were performed to determine the
status of water during the different phases of the rock's creation. It is
clear that the older red rocks have been in the presence of liquid water on the
surface of Mars within the last 50 million years. It is equally clear that
the gray rocks have not been in the presence of liquid water in the 13 million
years of its existence.
The following photographs are not very good, but they were
the best I could do when the experiment was performed. I want to use
these
original
photographs because they were the first experiments that I performed shortly
after NASA announced that they had found possible life in a Martian meteorite
they had recovered from Antarctica in 1996. Later, when I took core
samples from the meteorite I was able to get better material and do better
experiments. I wanted to use "virgin" material from inside the meteorite
for my experiments, but it took me a long time to figure out how to accomplish
that task, without ruining future science. In
the end, the core samples were the answer, as I was able to drive a piece
of 1/2" copper tubing directly into the rock. This was advantages over
drilling in that it kept most of the contents of the inner vesicles intact, and
I could easily separate the sand that came from the
inner vesicles from the lava of the meteorite itself (13ma gray rock).
I would think this sand would have been the sand on the
surface of Mars when the lava flowed at around 13 million years ago. This
sand was trapped in the vesicles of the rock and it was probably dry at the
time. The sand is very hydrophobic at first, indicating that
it hasn't
been in the presence
of water since it was captured 13 million years ago. When the water has
time to "work," it slowly "dissolves" many of the "rocks" into much smaller
particles. This tells me that the bonds that formed many of the larger
particles were made when the water evaporated the material originally. By
my adding water back, I would be creating the original state of the material,
when it was in water. You can clearly see that the particle size has
changed dramatically by the two photos of before and after water. These
experiments will be repeated with better equipment, but I'm not going to take
new samples from the meteorite and further damage future science of the rock.
At the time I did the main water experiments, I didn't
know much about the meteorite and certainly didn't know if
it was made of more than one material. This problem was solved by some of
my water experiments. Several of the larger vesicles had produced little
"clods" of dirt. Three of them can be seen in the upper right Petri dish
in the picture to the right. The core samples are in the upper left and
the sand is in the Petri dish on the lower right. The copper tube is also
displayed.
As I proceeded with my experiment, I put a drop of water
on each of the three "clods" of Martian "dirt." Two of them yielded only
more sand. But the third clod showed me something completely unexpected
and very fortuitous. It revealed the presence of another little "rock."
This information was very important to me, because it clearly showed that the
meteorite was made of at least two different lava flows. Since this red
rock was inside the sand which was inside the gray rock, then logically that
would be pretty conclusive evidence that the red rock was
older than the gray rock. Later potassium argon tests confirmed my
suspicion and that is why I'm confident in the accuracy of my age tests.
Also,
further
testing showed that there is sand inside of every vesicle of the red rocks also.
This appears to be the same sand that is inside the
gray rock. This also indicates material that is older than the red rock,
giving at least three different ages of material in the Frass Meteorite.
Remember the linear nature of the chemistry indicates that all these materials
came from the same source volcano. This means the sand inside the red rock
came from the same volcano, as the red rock came from the same volcano, as
the sand inside the gray rock came from the same volcano, as the gray rock came
from the same volcano. This entire process must have taken many millions
of years more, yet material from other systems has not been involved in the
creation of the Frass Meteorite. This is clearly evidence of Martian
origin, the only place in the known solar system that has volcanoes stable for
millions or
billions of years.
Also note the fine little edges on the red rock. If you look at 8 o'clock, you can see a very fine and delicate edge that sticks out from the main body of the rock. I can tell you from my experience, that this little ledge can be broken off using only your fingernail. Most of the internal walls of the Frass Meteorite are that delicate. What this indicates is that the rock has never been tumbled in any kind of stream or rapidly moving water, otherwise this little section would have broken off. The sand surrounding it clearly shows that it was in a still pool or ocean of some kind, but the small delicate parts show that it was not washed much. The potassium argon dating confirmed that this little red rock was created about 50 million years ago. It apparently lay on the surface of Mars for much of this time.
Additional pictures below:
