Planet Four Talk

Boulders or Fans, Which Happens First?

  • Mote by Mote

    Once again, I am imagining and asking before I do research. 1) Do these boulders form by wind erosion on the surface ( a peak broken off then rolled around), or 2) are boulders formed in the process of condensation (like water on a mote forming a raindrop, or a pearl)? or 3) are they result of Bernoulli's principle as the co2 gas vents the area in the center of the jet past the nozzle having less pressure allowing reverse sublimation to occur (the bed of a truck while moving when filled with icy snow creates a ball of ice blowing around, I imagine this becoming solid under the right conditions)... or 4) are they actual boulders of rock that have risen up through the dry-ice cap (the brazil nut effect, or granular convection), or are they bubbles (not boulders at all), or are they shiny craters, or are these sandworms breathing 😃 , or is some other way of building them up or cutting them out at play? so many seem to be at the center of these plumes and blotches and appear very symmetrical, and some seem to be in clusters like grapes while others are grouped around a blotch perimeter like ejecta. Do any of these uneducated guesses have any physical basis in reality? What available chemicals are blowing through with weather changes? Could these be magnetic accretions? There are dirty boulders and non-symmetrical and some that block the plumes of others, why no black boulders [ don't shoot 😃 sorry ,had to ]?

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  • Mote by Mote

    Image APF00011zh upper right of this image shows what looks like a mudball that got rolled around and spit out of the funnel it made

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  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator

    Good job you put those smiley's in there otherwise you might have been invaded, never mind shot at !! 😉

    I'm gonna leave it to Pete (p.titchen) to try and give you some answers. He's our resident boulder investigator, because he boulderly goes where we do not dare. I'm sure your image would be welcomed on his Boulders discussion here. (Just type in APF000250y and it'll link directly to your image).

    I have suggested that your point 1) might be a process of boulder formation on the ridges of Inca City, but I've nothing to back up the idea. Your other points are beyond me I'm afraid, but 'breathing sandworms' is a rather attractive idea. 😉

    Good stuff Mote. Keep it coming. Cheers, Kith.

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