Man, are people just in a snotty mood on this site or something? Prejudging something false before they've even heard the pro/con arguments...

But it's funny, the same thing you said of impact hypothesis could be said of electrical hypothesis as well. Electricity is used [in Electrical Discharge Machining] routinely in the lab to excavate surfaces by cratering. And one of the byproducts of EDM is spherule generation, granted they're usually tiny grains, but that's just due to the tiny arcs used in the lab for machining. So if one accepts the electrical hypothesis, one realizes that nature can create craters AND spherules without ballistic impact.

Hematite was just an example, I'm not saying that spherules couldn't be composed of other minerals. But, that's what we were discussing, was the hematite spherules...

Or are you asking why the specific spherules were only hematite and not other compounds? You'd have to ask the hardcore electrical theorists on that one. But I'd guess that Hematite is perhaps more easily deformed by electromagnetic forces than some other chemicals that might be in the Martian surface in that area.

(Article about how the folks at teslamania.com "shrink"/deform coins via electricity. Has some technical specs on what they use for the catastrohic electrical discharges they generate to shrink the coins. Hope this helps clue you in.) http://205.243.100.155/frames/shrinker.html

Examples:
http://205.243.100.155/frames/shrinkergallery.html

I've already been over this on a different post, so I don't know why I'm having to rehash it. Ohh well. Read up.

Basically, different materials are better conductors of electricity, ad respond differently to the induced magnetic fields. So, perhaps Hematite is more prone to spherule formation than other materials? Due to Iron content, perhaps? Just a thought. Personally, I'd expect to see other metals possibly form spherules too. Whether or not any non-Hematite spherules have been found, I don't know. Has the rover inspected EVERY spherule or just 2-10 sitting right next to each other? If it's only inspected a couple in a close proximity to, maybe it's simply an error of sample size. I'd be interested to see it test a good sampling of spherules from other locations, and get their compositions too...

I'm just putting it out there for discussion. Not claiming to be an expert in any shape or form. Just seeing some interesting things and wondering what others think.

As to how much voltage is required to shrink a coin in the tests, the teslamania page has technical specs on their experiments. I'd assume that similar results would be achieved by similar discharges on Mas. I'd assume that, on general principle, a lightning strike would carry a significant amount of energy. Depending on the size and duration, it could well carry enough current to create spherule concretions... But one would have to trigger lightning in surface strata similar to Mars to see the exact effects of voltage on spherule size. Know of any regions on Earth with soil much like that near the "craters" (electrical or ballistic, whatever) on Mars that's also Electrically active enough we could watch for strikes and then check for spherules in the area (here on Earth)?

As to the water seepage theories, I haven't "actively conferred" with anyone about it, but I also haven't heard of anyone ever duplicating the process in the lab. And the fact that there's little to no water currently on Mars SEEMS to indicate that water seepage is a fairly null result. Though if we find evidence of large quantities of ACTUAL verifiable current or historical water, I MIGHT give them a shot, if they put up a convincing argument... And I hope that wasn't an attempt at a Straw Man argument against my point, 'cause I don't go for that fallacious bullocks. But I'll "assume" good faith, as I've learned to do on Wikipedia, and not push the point.