Originally posted by 0pass
Now this is how a real fossil would look (with some color correction maybe) on Mars.

Some things about that photo:
- colourising a photo removes some information about the image, as you turn it into a monochrome image
- images that size will always be hard to analyse
- we don't really know how a Martian fossil looks like

But yes, generally it would be something like that.

But for most of us this would still look like rocks. Unless the rock is excavated and analyzed, it will remain a rock no matter how closely it looks like a dinosaur.

It depends, after all, we only pick the rocks that look unusual, we don't pick all the rocks when we are looking for fossils.

Unless we have an army of paleontologists on Mars, we have no option but to depend on the expert opinion of NASA scientists (who I believe are not paleontologist of any measure) and the findings of their tests and instruments which sometimes is called one for the "History Books" and then repudiated a few days later.

I don't think they have palaeontologists on the Curiosity team, but a geologist is enough to "filter" some of the cases. After all, a fossil can only be part of a sedimentary rock or be a mineralized version of the original, fossils do not exist in igneous rocks like basalt, for example.

Another example of a fossil found on our planet earth which too look like a bunch of rocks except for people with "pareidolia"

Context is important. If I saw something like this on a Mars photo I would probably say that they look like rocks but that they would look out of place in an area like all those we have seen so far, without rocks that look like that.

After all, fossils are rocks.

Originally posted by 0pass
Jokes apart, do I need to have actually seen a fossil what with the internet and three dimentional imagery available.

No, but it helps, specially if you have seen them in their original place.

And to my layman eyes, these look like fossils of some sort. Whether they are actually fossils or just rock it is for experts to decide and NASA seems to have also spotted one of these rocks and did a laser test.

If they do a test to see the composition of a fossil they will probably find the same composition as the surrounding soil (if the fossil was made by replacing the living tissue with the minerals surrounding it and the surroundings didn't change since then).

If you see a rock that looks to be made of the same material as the ground around it but has a distinct shape then it's more likely to be a fossil than if you see a rock that looks like basalt and has a distinct shape.

Once the results are out and they turn out to be rocks, then I rest my case.

The problem is that they are not going to test all rocks, so the results will never exist.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Once the results are out and they turn out to be rocks, then I rest my case.

The problem is that they are not going to test all rocks, so the results will never exist.

Why is everyone being so serious. Heaven is not going to fall on our heads (not on the 21st of December atleast) if any of these "fossils" turn out to be rocks after all.

For the moment, I am planning to return back to Earth and watch some nice sci-fi movie.

Originally posted by 0pass
Why is everyone being so serious.

I always start by thinking that people are serious about what they say.

Heaven is not going to fall on our heads (not on the 21st of December atleast) if any of these "fossils" turn out to be rocks after all.

What I meant is that we do not have any way of knowing if they are fossils or not.

look like bug, fossils are rock.
rock replace the animal all that is left is rock

The fossil has the same gray color as the surrounding rocks. In my opinion, it has to be rocks.

Cool pictures of the ground...could be fossils...but why would Earth-like objects be found on Mars?


One time my slice of pizza looked like an Imperial Star Destroyer...I mean...


One time my pizza WAS an Imperial Star Destroyer. True story!


It attacked my hunger with a ferocity that would have made Spartans cringe.