200 Words Per-Minute Reading Test

Length: 10 minutes total time

6 minutes to read
4 minutes to answer the questions

Fossil hunt teaches off-world lessons

Excursion illustrates value of vehicles and humans on Mars
MARS BASE, Utah, February 9.

At our morning meeting I laid out our plan for the next several days: a series of long-range, motorized
reconnaissance EVAs to give us a broad familiarity with the area and identify key sites for further in-
depth study. One of the crewmembers asked if it might not be more methodical to start at the habitat
and slowly spiral out, studying one site after another in turn. My response was no; When you explore a
house, you don’t walk in the front door and then stop and spend several hours examining the contents
of the foyer with a microscope. No, you give the place the once-over first. It is the same with field
exploration. Before you invest a lot of time in focused study of particular sites, you conduct a general
survey. This gives you the overview you need to assign your priorities.

SADDLING UP
The team for the extravehicular activity was composed of Steve McDaniel, Jennifer Heldmann,
Heather Chluda and yours truly. With four people going EVA, it took a while to get everyone suited up,
so we were not out of the lock until a little before noon. We took about 20 minutes to set up a weather
station, and then headed north on our all-terrain vehicles. ATVs are like four-wheel drive motorcycles.
Your ride them in equestrian fashion, with a single rider astride each one. They allow you to travel fast
over very rough terrain, and are light enough that if one gets stuck, you can probably liberate it using
human labor power alone.

The ATVs that we drive on Earth, powered by air/fuel combustion engines, won’t work on Mars, but
equivalent vehicles driven by fuel cells could be created and should be. Because while minivan-sized
pressurized rovers will also play a role in Mars exploration, it will primarily be as mobile bases, they
simply won’t have the agility needed to deal with most types of unimproved ground. In any case, the
idea of going through all the work of suiting up for a pedestrian EVA whenever a pressurized rover
reaches an interesting site is unappealing. No, Mars explorers will need the kind of informal mobility
that an All-Terrain-Vehicle can provide, moving them directly where they want to go while keeping
them in intimate contact with the environment.

LOOKING FOR FOSSILS

The weather was perfect. We set out heading north, and after traveling about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles)
came across a rather impressive outcrop of sedimentary rocks. We decided to check it out. Jennifer, our
geologist, and Steve, our biologist, collected all types of samples of rocks and possible cyanobacteria.
I searched the place for fossils, but didn’t find much. This was a disappointment. The banded
Mesozoic sediments included both terrestrial and marine materials, and wave ripples in the sandstone
were clearly visible. By rights, the formation should have been full of fossils. It wasn’t.
We continued north another 2.5 kilometers and came to a hill too steep for the ATVs. I decided to
climb it, though, to get the view of the region to the west. We hiked up, and were rewarded not merely
with an impressive view, but with the sight of a fair-sized canyon and a passable ATV route to get
there. So to the canyon we went. This was a wonderful place, with a steep little gorge that exposed
millions of years of banded sediments to easy view. I climbed around the rim and had a Eureka
moment when I found some bits of petrified wood. These, were made irrelevant within minutes by
Heather, who found a small mountain made of the stuff, in several varieties, no less.

But then I found something, which really made my day, a bone of stone. It’s the size of a coffee mug,
and the indentation for the joint is clearly visible. The material I found it in was Jurassic, so my guess
is that it’s a dinosaur. A bone of stone, about the size of a coffee mug, could represent a dinosaur fossil.
The specimen was taken from a Jurassic layer of sediment in the Utah desert.

We won’t find dinosaur fossils on Mars, or even petrified wood, but we might find stromatolites or
other types of primitive fossils, and the issues involved are similar. Fossils finds are anomalous
phenomena. For one to occur, several unlikely things need to happen. First, an organism, which, as a
living thing, must live its whole life in contact with the biosphere, must be isolated from the
environment at the moment of death. This is necessary, or the environment will destroy its remains. It
must then remain isolated from the environment for millions or (in the most probable case for Mars)
billions of years, only to be exposed the environment again right before you show up. If it is not re-
exposed you won’t find it, and if it is re-exposed too soon it will be destroyed before you see it. If all
this seems rather improbable, it is. That is why we are not all constantly tripping over Triceratops
bones, and that is why fossils will be at least as rare on Mars as they are on Earth.

ROBOTS VS. HUMANS

There is a lesson in all of this for those who think that robots represent a superior way of exploring
Mars. With a human crew on this site, impaired by all the impedimenta of spacesuit simulators with
cloudy visors, backpacks, thick gloves and clumsy boots, our crew found petrified wood and a fossil
bone fragment within two days. But to do it we had to travel substantial distances, and climb up and
down steep hills from which we could take views and map out new plans. We had to search the sites
we visited, processing the equivalent of millions of high-resolution photographs with our eyes for
subtle clues. We had to dig. We had to break open rocks and take samples back to the station for
detailed analysis. In short, we had to do a ton of things that are vastly beyond the capabilities of
robotic rovers.

Sojourner landed on Mars and explored 12 rocks in two months. Today we explored thousands. If a
robot had been landed at the position of our habitat, it would have spent months examining a few
uninteresting rocks in the immediate vicinity of the station. It would never have found the fossils. After
the canyon, we continued further north, eventually coming to a huge cliff, with a 500-foot sheer drop
past several epochs of exposed geologic history. The view was spectacular. Heather suggested we
rappel down. She’s a bit of an athlete, you see, and that’s the sort of thing she goes in for. Fortunately,
however, no rope was available, and we all returned to the habitat alive, having covered 19 kilometers
(12 miles) in a day.

Words – 1153
 Test Questions

True and False

1. The author states that robots are the best candidates to explore for fossils on Mars.

2. An acronym in this reading for extravaluable activity is EVA.

3. Some fossils are found in the Jurassic sedimentary level.

4. Fossils are very common in sedimentary rock.

5. ATVs are like four-wheel drive motorcycles that are designed for mobility on Mars.

Multiple Choice

6. When you explore a house, you don’t walk in the front door and then stop and spend several
hours examining the contents of the foyer with a microscope. No, you give the place the once-
over first.
This passage infers:
a. When one explores you examine the entire evidence closely one step at a time.
b. Always examine the entire scene before starting a detailed search.
c. Once you are over the place examine it quickly with a microscope.
d. All of the above.

7. Banded Mesozoic sediments included both terrestrial and marine materials, and wave ripples in
the sandstone were clearly visible. By rights, the formation should have been full of fossils. It
wasn’t.
This passage states:
a. Marine sedimentary materials may contain fossils.
b. Mesozoic sedimentary layers may be stratified.
c. Sedimentary layers are the main components of the Mesozoic formation.
d. All of the above.

8. A bone of stone, about the size of a coffee mug, could represent a dinosaur fossil. The specimen
was taken from a Jurassic layer of sediment in the Utah desert.
This passage infers:
a. All Jurassic sediment contains dinosaur bone.
b. One should enjoy coffee while searching for dinosaur bone.
c. He found a dinosaur bone.
d. Fossils are made of rock

9. How many members were on the expedition looking for fossils in Utah.
a. 4
b. 5
c. 3
d. 6

10. The athors “Eureka moment” was beside the point when Heather found a small mountain of:
a. Petrified wood
b. Jurassic layers
c. Triceratops bones
d. Fossil bone