Astrophysik und Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik

Fossils on Mars? A "Cambrian Explosion" and "Burgess Shale" in Gale Crater?

Abstract

R. Gabriel Joseph, V. Rizzo, C H. Gibson, Rosanna del Gaudio, A R. Sumanarathna, R A. Armstrong J G. Ray, A. M. T. Elewa, G. Bianciardi, D. Duvall, N C. Wickramasinghe and Rudolph Schild

An array of formations resembling the fossilized remains of Ediacaran and Cambrian fauna and other marine organisms have been observed embedded atop sediments in the dried lake beds of Gale Crater, Mars. Specimens similar and diverse in morphology have been found together and upon adjacent and nearby rocks and mudstone. These include forms morphologically similar to polychaete and segmented annelids, tube worms, "Kimberella,” crustaceans, lobopods, chelicerates, Haplophrentis carinatus, and the “ice-cream-cone-shaped” “Namacalathus” and “Lophophorates” and other biomineralized metazoans. All specimens may have dwelled in a large body of water and fossilized/mineralized following the rapid receding of these waters. Statistical quantitative micro- and macro- morphological comparisons with analog organisms from Earth support the fossil-hypothesis. It is not likely so many similar and diverse specimens, side by side, oriented differently, some on top of each other, were fashioned via abiogenic forces such as wind, mineralization, crystallization, dried mud, or water-erosion scenarios as there are no terrestrial abiogenic analogs. Interplanetary transfer of life may explain the parallels with Earth. Collectively these putative fossils may represent the equivalent of a “Cambrian Explosion” and the remnants of Martian organisms that long ago flourished in the lakes and inland seas of Gale Crater.