"Martian" mineral builds mounds and might preserve fossils

[Oxytropidoceras]

Strange 'martian' mineral mounds rise up 

from Utah's Great Salt Lake By Tom Metcalfe

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/rare-salt-formations-appear-along-the-great-salt-lake/2020/01/10/5b581e9c-33e5-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html

https://www.space.com/martian-mineral-mounds-rise-utah-salt-lake.html

https://www.lite1065.com/2020/01/16/rare-martian-mineral-mounds-appear-in-utahs-great-salt-lake/

 

What rare environmental mounds at Great Salt 

Lake could teach us about Mars. Utah geologists 

document spring mounds for first time

By Amy Joi O'Donoghue, Deseret News, January 7, 2020

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/1/7/21055472/great-salt-lake-rare-environmental-mounds-could-teach-us-about-mars

 

Other publications:

 

Schubert, B.A., Lowenstein, T.K. and Timofeeff, M.N., 

2009. Microscopic identification of prokaryotes in 

modern and ancient halite, Saline Valley and Death 

Valley, California. Astrobiology, 9(5), pp.467-482.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.714.5959&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/14ac/33a1fb626040f3019947bfe95903ebe46d99.pdf

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

[Scylla]

This is from 2001. Bacteria found in salt is old. 250 million years old

 

https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(00)01926-0