Desert varnish.... or "weird life"? Scientists posit shadow biosphere

wfgodot

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Lengthy. Interesting. From Observer/Guardian:

Life on Earth… but not as we know it
Never mind aliens in outer space. Some scientists believe we may be sharing the
planet with 'weird' lifeforms that are so different from our own they're invisible to us

Across the world's great deserts, a mysterious sheen has been found on boulders and rock faces. These layers of manganese, arsenic and silica are known as desert varnish and they are found in the Atacama desert in Chile, the Mojave desert in California, and in many other arid places. They can make the desert glitter with surprising colour and, by scraping off pieces of varnish, native people have created intriguing symbols and images on rock walls and surfaces.

How desert varnish forms has yet to be resolved, despite intense research by geologists. Most theories suggest it is produced by chemical reactions that act over thousands of years or by ecological processes yet to be determined.

Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University, has a very different suggestion. She believes desert varnish could be the manifestation of an alternative, invisible biological world. Cleland, a philosopher based at the university's astrobiology centre, calls this ethereal dimension the shadow biosphere. "The idea is straightforward," she says. "On Earth we may be co-inhabiting with microbial lifeforms that have a completely different biochemistry from the one shared by life as we currently know it."
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much more at the link
 
Thanks for posting... it has prompted me to go through my old Valley of Fire images to see if I caught any of it (desert varnish) on camera. :)
 
Wow, that stuff is all over the rocks within the Valley of Fire park... when I pulled open my RAW files I instantly spied it! This has really, really piqued my interest.
 
Interesting stuff, thanks for posting the link Woofie!
 
Awesome! It is beautiful and intriguing!
 

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