Ugh, this was one of those days that they really needed to back up and explain some things more clearly to the reporters.

First, some of the stories seem to conflate the possibility of a water-driven salt cementation going in the soil, with the possibility that the outcrop was deposited in water. Not at all the same process or the same evidence.

On the soil, these reports are implying WAY WAY too much water. We're not talking about mud, let alone finding a puddle at the bottom of a trench. All you need are very small amounts of moisture moving through microscopic pores in the soil to carry the salts. Let it run over millions of years and you can move enough salt to make a difference, but the amount of water involved at any given moment is tiny. I know that's all Squyres and others were suggesting -- I think even Nick may be ok with models that exchange microscopic bits of moisture between the surface and atmosphere -- but I don't think the panel picked up the clues in the journalist's questions that they were imagining mud, not sand that is very very slightly damp, probably just for very short periods of time.

Then again, there are those hydrogen signatures from Odessey to explain....