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This work looks solid and careful to me:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ast.2014.1218
On Earth, in semiarid regions, mats of bluegreen algae develop in lakes and ponds which subsequently may completely dry up---the microbial material becoming part of a sedimentary sandstone formation with visibly distinctive features.
Nora Noffke (BS 1990 MS 1992 Tübingen PhD1997 Oldenburg) is a geomicrobiologist who has made a specialty of studying "microbially induced sedimentary structures" (MISS) e.g. in arid parts of Australia and south Africa, including very old structures e.g. age > 3.7 billion years. She has identified remarkable similarities in photos of Mars surface taken by the mast camera of the Curiosity rover.
Distinctive features where it looks like the mat has blistered and formed an empty pocket, or where it has torn and folded over as if washed by a current, or where a small portion the drying mat has actually rolled up.
She has identified flat folds, and roll-ups, and distinctive tears and cracks in the Mars rover photos of a dry lake bed, and prepared comparisons with photos taken of Earth MISS.
So there is this hypothesis, which can be tested by further/closer examination
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ast.2014.1218
On Earth, in semiarid regions, mats of bluegreen algae develop in lakes and ponds which subsequently may completely dry up---the microbial material becoming part of a sedimentary sandstone formation with visibly distinctive features.
Nora Noffke (BS 1990 MS 1992 Tübingen PhD1997 Oldenburg) is a geomicrobiologist who has made a specialty of studying "microbially induced sedimentary structures" (MISS) e.g. in arid parts of Australia and south Africa, including very old structures e.g. age > 3.7 billion years. She has identified remarkable similarities in photos of Mars surface taken by the mast camera of the Curiosity rover.
Distinctive features where it looks like the mat has blistered and formed an empty pocket, or where it has torn and folded over as if washed by a current, or where a small portion the drying mat has actually rolled up.
She has identified flat folds, and roll-ups, and distinctive tears and cracks in the Mars rover photos of a dry lake bed, and prepared comparisons with photos taken of Earth MISS.
So there is this hypothesis, which can be tested by further/closer examination
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