051520c

under the arms
forest bacteria
war with the plains folk

011419b

grind a pebble into the dirt
a billion trillion critters survive
in its microscopic crevices
but without the Sun's light

they don't do so for long
thank goodness they are not self-aware
and never know they lived or died

011917b

NASA found some possible mud cracks on Mars


If these are desiccation fractures,
then there was mud, there was water,
3 billion years or so ago,
this is a science poem,
no fiction in it,
but on the three photographs they posted,
unconvincing mud cracks, I must say,
centrally displayed,
off to the right on one I saw some wiggles,
tiny, parallel, wrinkles,
runzelmarken, those are called,
wrinkle marks, to the Anglophone geologist;
they form when wind blows across very shallow water,
water over mud, whose surface
holds together just a bit;
here on earth what does that
is called a microbial mat:
microbes, buddy!
Microbes on Mars,
3 billion years ago,
and why not now?
Why not now?


https://www.facebook.com/NASAJPL/photos/pcb.10154414335168924/10154414335058924/?type=3&theater 

Fossil Microscopic Encrusting Tubular Organism

These photos illustrate an unidentified mound-building organism discovered in the Carboniferous (Mississippian) of North Alabama (Haywick and others, 2016). The mounds also include some larger tubes, probably made by worms, indicated in one of the photographs. Any ideas about what made the small ones will be greatly appreciated.

 Several of the larger tubes, which we interpret as worm tubes, indicated by black and white arrows.

 Mound-building tubular organism growing off of a brachiopod spine and extending towards the center of the photograph.

Mound-building tubular organism indicated by large white arrow.

Haywick, D.W., Kopaska-Merkel, D.C., and Keyes, R., 2016, Petrographic and faunal characteristics of Monteagle and Hartselle-equivalent strata in northeast Alabama, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions 66, p. 211-229.

no title, by my pallid whiskers

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my straw's lumen
is coated with black threads
no pipe cleaners