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Space/Science » in reply to active geyser vs passive spot

re: active geyser vs passive spot
Greg Orme — (archived)

I'm going a bit from recollection, but quite a few people corresponded with me in the last few years at the martianspiders.com site.
1. The image cannot be active geysers in the sense that we are looking at actual geysers spewing dark soil from the ice. This relies on us being able to see the plumes somewhat to the side. The emmission angle however is only .25 degrees. So this is a photo from directly above, so we cannot be seeing a side view from above.
2. The idea of geysers was covered already in our original paper on the spiders. Just because they choose not to reference it doesn't mean the idea is new. We covered all these ideas pretty thoroughly: http://www.martianspiders.com/martianspiders.pdf
3. I don't think there is a significant correlation between spiders and dark spots as a cause and effect. For example:
http://www.martianspiders.com/e0700829.jpg.htm. Here the streaks are similar but without the geyser "plume". The spiders have no relation to their exit points, and in fact I have never seen such a dark "plume" coming from the center of a spider. The most likely is that the dark spots are the first part of dark soil heated by the sun. Then the wind blows them in a particular direction. As I recall the direction of the streaks is consistent with the wind blowing directly on or off the pole. Another example:
http://www.martianspiders.com/e0702165b.jpg.htm
Another one that is often presented as evidence for geysers is:
http://www.martianspiders.com/e0800031b.jpg.htm. The emmission angle is also wrong, we are looking at this from above not at an apparent 45 degree or so side angle. So since there is such a strong optical illusion here one must be careful. Also here the sun angle is wrong, it appears the dark streaks are shadows but they cannot be.
In fact I believe I can prove how the spiders are formed now (no, not plants). I'm hoping to write a paper on it with Peter Ness this year, assuming anyone will want to publish it.

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