February 13, 2002

A very weak response. It certainly is a 'zero sum game' (such a fashionable term) if Nick claims that CO2 is responsible for the observed surface morphology of Mars, the massive slumping, runoff features, crater infilling and the cliffs, mesas and plateaus. Nick has claimed over and over that the water burden is light and near surface (a few meters).

What Nick's consistently fails to describe in his expositions is the evolution of the geological strata, the geological and meteorological history of Mars, and the radical difference between the OBSERVED surface morphology of the mid latitudes, the northern basin, and the poles.

Imagine in your mind (if you can) that the CO2 ice sheet was absent from the south pole (use the global photos as your guide). What is left at the periphery, the underlying presumably water ice plateau (which we know exists) looks very similar to what we find laying around everywhere else on the surface of Mars, with the exception of the northern basin, and adjusted for differences in average temperature. If the entire Mars surface was so uniformly cold for the last 3.8 billion years, as Nick states over and over as 'probably', with no evidence to support that vague claim, then wouldn't you suppose that the upper crust of Mars would look something like the CO2 ice sheets that we see at the poles? Especially considering the difference between the physical properties of water and CO2.

Nick consistantly neglects the concept of geological and historical evolution in his expositions, dealing only with composition, and almost totally neglecting the deposition process.

What's my stake in this? Truth, via evidence, pure and simple. Nick is sincere and honest and totally focused on his theory, to the extent of not looking at the totality of the data, arguing farther and farther afield, to support a rapidly diminishing possibility. He is headed for severe disappointment. If anything, I'd like to cushion that blow.

The truth of Mars is harsh, but it is considerably less harsh than Nick proposes, and the fall need not be so far and final. He needs to open his eyes and broaden his views and take a good hard look at the new large scale Mars Atlas photos, and let his intuitions guide him, if the numbers fail him. And it's not just Nick. Nearly the entire Mars geological community is in for a BIG surprise, and the credits will be neither mine nor his, but Mars' entirely. If anybody has a handle on it, it's Robert Clark.

Thomas Lee Elifritz
lifeform@atlantic.net
http://www.atlantic.net/~elifritz