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so we're going to move into the dress

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how do I advance this there we go so

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today first I'm going to talk about the

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purpose of this study and some of the

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applications i'm going to go over the

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areas i studied and then i'm going to

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kind of compare things to Mars so I'm

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looking at rocks Jurassic age rocks on

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the Colorado Plateau as an analog for

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Mars sedimentary rocks at Gale Crater

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okay I'm going to go through some data

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hopefully not too much Sen is just

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pictures photography as pictures so it

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won't be to date a heavy but and so

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hopefully I don't lose it lose the crowd

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here so the purpose of this was to look

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at how microbial fossils are preserved

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over geologic time and that that's a

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question and that really hasn't been

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answered and to do this I'm going to

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look at modern microbial mats that have

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ancient terraces so hundred thousand

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year old terraces in this from the same

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system and then I'm going to look at

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Jurassic rocks and compare these 2 c1

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how they're changing and then to what

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kinds of chemical and mineralogical

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signatures are persisting over geologic

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time so you might say this is a this is

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an these rocks that i showed a picture

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of last night they're from an alkylene

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saline lake and you might say are you

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comparing apples and oranges here and

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not really they're both have abundance

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biotic features they're both alkaline

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saline groundwater fed systems so there

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are some similarities okay so i'm using

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this as an analog to the rocks at gale

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crater which are very similar it's been

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suggested that these are

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lacoste written in origin or were

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deposited in a lake system is this too

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loud it seems really loud okay okay so

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anyway the rocks of Gale Crater were

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possibly a deposited in a lake system

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similar to the lake system of the brushy

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Basin formation they're iron and clay

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rich sediments we've heard a lot about

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clays and these this has application for

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obviously looking for biosignatures in

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these rocks at Gale Crater but also for

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terrestrial origin of life studies

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because we have heard already today that

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there is some Stillson question on how

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to really pin down what an actual bio

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signature is so so the other the other

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big thing is just understanding the

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basic sedimentology of Gale Crater like

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how did these rocks form and what kinds

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of environments where they formed in and

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what is the history of the rocks of so

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diagenesis is a word that I will use

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diagenesis basically means the process

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by which sediments become sedimentary

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rocks so sediments are deposited they

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get buried water and sometimes on well

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on earth biota begin to interact and and

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they become sedimentary rocks so that

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that's all I mean when I say diagenesis

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but that's a that's a very big process

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that we need to under better understand

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for Gale Crater alright so here's my

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cold spring system it's in 10 miles

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Robin which is in southern Utah in the

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United States it's a it's a cold spring

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system it's got co2 and hydrocarbon and

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it's been it's been in existence for at

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least 400,000 years there are abundant

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tufa terraces that very conveniently

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somebody else went out dated so I know

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exactly how old these days are so it's

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been in existence for 400,000 years I

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elected a hundred thousand year old to

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fight Arastoo to study as well as modern

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Springs and these are my daughters and

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and today is their 15th birthday and

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they're there watching so I have to say

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happy birthday Lily Anne and Alexis want

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to hear your birth story okay all right

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and so then the brushy Basin member of

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the Morrison Formation those are the

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Jurassic rocks i'm looking at and these

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were deposited as i've said in an

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alkaline saline groundwater fed system

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that centered on the Four Corners region

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at the Colorado Plateau so here's

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Colorado New Mexico Arizona and Utah and

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it's been named in the lid in the

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literature Lake to DG which is a navajo

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word meaning bitter water because the

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water must have been quite bitter and

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and we won't go into it but there are

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these clay minerals own so I'm not going

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to go into depth about the clay

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mineralogy there's also abundant biotic

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influence in this system which I'm not

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going to talk about too much either so

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so here's a comparison of the litho

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faces so little faces is just a fancy

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word that means a rock-type and and so

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we have basically three main rock types

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there's a silt stone clay stone and

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these are both for on Mars and in the

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brushy basis so there's a silt stone

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clay stone faces that can be laminated

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which means typically means it's deposit

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deposited in standing water in in in

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Colorado it's it's biota beta door and

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can be the betting can be completely

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destroyed in massive and that's due to

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bioturbation there's also a massive

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faces on Mars which may not be dieter

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baited you can get massive faces other

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ways and then as I mentioned last night

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in my presentation there are there is a

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silt stone clay stone faces that is

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buggy so bug bug is a word that just

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means void space

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and in Colorado this is interpreted as a

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Kara fight or care fidic texture which a

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caer fight is an algal mat and it leaves

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this kind of buggy texture in the rocks

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there's there are sandstone faces that

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exhibit cross bedding a little small

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scale cross wedding here and and there

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on Mars it can be biochar baited as well

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in in Utah or in Colorado and these are

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lenticular sandstones which suggests a

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fluval river system so these are river

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deposited in a river conglomerates as

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well exhibit imprecation which means

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they're tilted in the direction of

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current which suggests also that they

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were deposited in a river so which is

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not not inconsistent with the lake so

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you're thinking you said lake now you're

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talking about a river well if you've got

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a lake system that's periodically

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desiccating and you've got rivers

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feeding it during flood times think

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think app you know Sahara Serengeti in

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the Africa or in Western Australia the

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acid saline lakes and things that you

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have periodic floods that come in and

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and and deposit fluval sediments and

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then you have other times where lake is

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the lake waters is deeper and standing

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okay so as I said in in the brushy Basin

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member there's a abundant macroscopic

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biotic influence okay I've talked about

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the bugs the Kara Finnick texture these

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are reduction halos around root traces

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so very often you get paleosols which

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are fossil soils and you have evidence

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of roots and burrows in those and the

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the organic matter degrades and creates

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these reduction halos this is a highly

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burrowed rock here and this is a

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dinosaur femur and as I'm saying as I

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said last night I'm not suggesting

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they're dinosaurs on

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or were dinosaurs on Mars but we did we

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did have them here in the Jurassic and

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we do find evidence of that so for this

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study I used criteria for Biogen icity

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from sherry Katie 2001 and just you know

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to to have some sort of starting point

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okay so two to prove Biogen icity it has

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to be in a thin section so it has to be

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you have to show that it's actually not

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contamination it's actually in the rock

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it has to be a sedimentary or low-grade

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metamorphic rock because like we've

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discussed I mean if it's a in a in a

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lava it's you know unless it's not Cyn

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Cyn genetic it you know lava burns it up

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okay it needs to be the same size as

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life as we know it it needs to have

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carriage in it needs to be with others

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of similar morphology so it can't be you

191
00:10:05,020 --> 00:10:00,730
know can't just be one isolated feature

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it has to be living in a community needs

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to be hollow and have cellular

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complexity and then she set up this kind

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of criteria so if it meets wonderful one

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to four of these at sudo it's a pseudo

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fossil 125 it's possible and 127 it's

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probable okay oh my god alright so I'm

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going to go fast all right let's just

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look at these pictures these are so this

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is the modern spring this is the ancient

202
00:10:44,050 --> 00:10:40,910
spring you can see that these these

203
00:10:48,060 --> 00:10:44,060
features of the cyanobacteria are

204
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diffuse their recrystallizing over time

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one interesting thing is that there's

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very high drive somebody yesterday

207
00:10:59,350 --> 00:10:57,860
talked about out of unusual minerals and

208
00:11:01,870 --> 00:10:59,360
and things that are that are

209
00:11:03,850 --> 00:11:01,880
thermodynamically unstable and why are

210
00:11:04,569 --> 00:11:03,860
they present so why is very hydrate

211
00:11:07,949 --> 00:11:04,579
present in

212
00:11:11,259 --> 00:11:07,959
hundred thousand year old microbial mat

213
00:11:13,299 --> 00:11:11,269
probably it's it's it very hydrides a

214
00:11:15,100 --> 00:11:13,309
mineral that recrystallize us to more

215
00:11:16,900 --> 00:11:15,110
stable phases within weeks in a

216
00:11:19,239 --> 00:11:16,910
laboratory so the fact that it's there

217
00:11:22,389 --> 00:11:19,249
is very unusual fact that it's there and

218
00:11:24,309 --> 00:11:22,399
it's that old is very unusual alright

219
00:11:29,710 --> 00:11:24,319
these are these bugs we're going to just

220
00:11:32,499 --> 00:11:29,720
skip that and so here are the brushy

221
00:11:34,419 --> 00:11:32,509
basin or I'm sorry this is the modern

222
00:11:36,729 --> 00:11:34,429
spring and this is the brushy Basin

223
00:11:41,199 --> 00:11:36,739
member and we see some similar features

224
00:11:45,519 --> 00:11:41,209
these branching filaments Fran Boyd's

225
00:11:47,530 --> 00:11:45,529
and spheroids which are have been in the

226
00:11:49,419 --> 00:11:47,540
literature have been noted to be

227
00:11:51,999 --> 00:11:49,429
possible by 0 signatures these are

228
00:11:55,150 --> 00:11:52,009
associated with these tests of diatoms

229
00:12:00,879 --> 00:11:55,160
and there's diatoms present in both of

230
00:12:05,229 --> 00:12:00,889
them ok I'm going to skip over that all

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00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:05,239
right so to go to just the biogenesis

232
00:12:11,619 --> 00:12:07,850
v's are so what I do is I dissolve these

233
00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:11,629
in hydrofluoric acid and found algo

234
00:12:22,809 --> 00:12:16,850
fossils in the in the bugs all right

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we're going to skip this whoops alright

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00:12:29,619 --> 00:12:25,069
well we'll go here so anyway bottom line

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00:12:32,139 --> 00:12:29,629
is I did look at I looked at all of

238
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these features and they're segmented

239
00:12:37,650 --> 00:12:34,629
stocks and those are probable fossils

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00:12:41,949 --> 00:12:37,660
according to these according to these

241
00:12:45,069 --> 00:12:41,959
criteria those branching filaments are

242
00:12:49,090 --> 00:12:45,079
possible fossils the tests of this got

243
00:12:52,030 --> 00:12:49,100
messed up here probable fossils that soy

244
00:12:57,759 --> 00:12:52,040
del those Spears those iron oxide

245
00:13:02,710 --> 00:12:57,769
spheres or probable fossils and anyway

246
00:13:05,559 --> 00:13:02,720
so the conclusions are that these

247
00:13:07,780 --> 00:13:05,569
microbial fossils are associated with

248
00:13:09,970 --> 00:13:07,790
these macroscopic trace fossils these

249
00:13:11,590 --> 00:13:09,980
kara fight molds and so that's really

250
00:13:13,779 --> 00:13:11,600
the point I wanted to make here is that

251
00:13:17,550 --> 00:13:13,789
I think that those rocks on Mars bear

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00:13:20,010 --> 00:13:17,560
further investigation and

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there's my daughter's again and there's

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00:13:34,740 --> 00:13:32,370
Thank You Sally we have about a minute