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From: "Jim Wilkins" <muratla...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval,alt.war.vietnam,soc.veterans,rec.aviation.military,us.military.army
Subject: Re: first clear evidence of past flowing water on Mars
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 13:57:47 -0400
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"Keith W" <keithnospoofsple...@demon.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:ZmZas.301242$4z5.199275@fx08.am4...
> Jim Wilkins wrote:
>> "�Jones" <jdfg...@x.com> wrote in message
>> news:m19o685aggn2o189co533makcd6bsebha4@4ax.com...
>>> On Tue, 2 Oct 2012 23:28:55 -0700, in alt.war.vietnam "DGVREIMAN"
>>> <dgvrei...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I believe a large amount of the  water on Mars is underground.  I
>>>> have
>>>> heard some scientists speculate there is an large underground sea 
>>>> on
>>>> Mars that probably contains life.   If there was once water on 
>>>> the
>>>> surface you can bet there are at least underground rivers.  If 
>>>> that
>>>> is
>>>> true you can also bet some type of life lives in that water. 
>>>> Just
>>>> my
>>>> opinion of course.
>>>
>>> Well, it pretty much has to be *someplace*.  It's not in the
>>> atmosphere and it's not on the surface... so, by the process of
>>> elimination...
>>>
>>> Jones
>>
>> Then where is all the Nitrogen???
>> jsw
>
> A very good question and one that planetologists have been asking
> for some time. One theory seems to be that in Martian conditions
> it reacted with water to form nitric acid which may well make using
> any water deposits on Mars into an interesting problem.
> http://yly-mac.gps.caltech.edu/Reprintsyly/A_RecentPapers/Boxe%20et%20al%202012.pdf
> Keith

What's missing from that analysis is the relative attraction of 
nitrogen and carbon for oxygen. Mix nitrates with carbon and you have 
gunpowder.

On the early Earth the biologically generated free oxygen that might 
have been available to form nitrates first combined with iron:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation

It takes an excess of oxygen to sequester nitrogen as nitrates, even 
as ammonium nitrate NH4NO3. Cyanogen N=C-C=N and ferrocyanides could 
hold nitrogen in solid form without oxygen but assuming them requires 
a credible means of synthesis.

jsw