Is "Bounce" a basalt with spherules???

I'm somewhat confused as to what type of rock "Bounce" might be. NASA's latest April 1 release suggests "the possibility that this may be a basaltic rock that is distinctly different from the rocks seen in the Eagle Crater outcrop".
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Yet in a March 31 release they say it is rich in hematite and contains micro-spherules.
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So what's the reasoning for thinking it's a basalt? The only noticeable difference is the bright sheen that the rock has. Which minerals would be responsible for creating the sheen, other than mica which is obviously not seen in the microscope photos?
Is serpentine a possibilty? That would be interesting with all the talk of methane on mars.

See:

[link]

for a current discussion on this. Definitely not basalt or serpentine. It's sedementary. It's up to the viewer as to what type - clastic or biologic.

The JPL folks mentioned basaltic aspects in the spectrum. I noticed this as well (look towards the bottom of this page for spectra & discussion: http://www.clarkandersen.com/Mars.htm). It seems to have something in common with the spherules AND the bedrock in Eagle crater, the latter in the sense that it seems to be sedimentary. I would speculate that, like the spherules, it is a sediment bound up in a hematite rich matrix. The apparent basalt signature may be due to the sediment being based on a basaltic sand/dust, or it may be due to the hematite rich matrix.

I have no idea about the bright sheen.

The obvious question is that of where it came from. I can conceive of scenarios in which it is from a layer beneath the Eagle bedrock, and thus the source of the precipitate in the spherules, or as a layer above the Eagle bedrock layer, where it is a layer of precipitate similar to the spherules, but thicker. Of course this is complicated by its possessing spherules of its own, though smaller than found in the Eagle bedrock.

Fun stuff Can't wait 'til we get a look in Endurance.

The spherules are smaller right? So this particular rock may be from a sequence where the concretion process seen the crater rocks was halted such that there is still an abundance of hematite in the parent rock. If the rock has to be in the presence of water to form the hematite perhaps this rock was not in water for as long. please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Bounce seems to have several of those circular "sunburst" shapes, reminiscent of fossil coral; it also seems to have more of those "rotini". It's fascinating. And here I was wanting to hurry to Endurance Crater. Oh well, looks like we're soon on our way.

Updated composite rat of bounce:

my opinion - water borne sediments - looks more biologic than clastic..

Thanks for the composite. Yes, there really are all sorts of "things" in there. I guess that neither NASA, nor anyone, can really explain them. But I wish NASA would say why they think it is such an interesting rock. Surely it's because others there see the same unusual forms we do. Wouldn't it have been fun to have heard their conjecturing....

Randy - thiese pics arent all they can do. They can explain a lot more with the alpha spectrometer run over a long period in alpha mode. the good thing is i think they're gonna do that. one of the dudes at the briefing said they can do a run while getting their several day software upgrade.. with the spectrometer run over that long - the APXS data can give the carbon trace (they back out the atmospheric carbon contribution). One problem is the mineralization/fossilization process might remove any bio carbons that may have existed- but this is mars so who knows.. i think everyone is winging it..

color pan of bounce ratting:

Nice pics scidude. Liked the composite ratt. Interesting stuff in there, I really wish that they'd gone with multiple filters on the MI camera; these B&W are limiting.

Okay, here's an assortment of assembled results from the Sol68 Ratt Hole images:

Visible color (L4L5L6):

Geology enhanced color (R7R2R1)

Cross-eyed stereo pair (L2L7R2R1):

Pancam spectrum of rat (overexposed):

And finally, an attemp at colorizing the ratt hole by tracing the color from my R7R2R1 image over scidude's MI composite. Don't trust this one too much:

Any idea why the rock is so white after grinding?

Is it possible that the white ratting material is evidence of biotic sediment? dont know. it brings me to another point. clark -and others- detailed from satellite photos two very distinct layers of bedrock. my theory would be that this rock was ejected for the lower/older bedrock layer.. the upper bedrock was analyzed at eagle and this nothing like it.. if so - this older bedrock is a completely new piece of evidence on mars history.. my guess....

clark - i like the coloration attempt on the rat hole.. i understand r1 and r2 - but why r7? also, nasa has at times has colorized microscope pics - i thought using cover open/closed information. Would like to develop that technique - do you have any clues on that process? i know i read once what wavelength cover closed is but dont remember. I think cover open is full bandpass - 400 to 1000. i can't see how that's useful. anyway - if you have any advice on it i'd love to hear it.. yeah - if they only would have put rgb filters on the microscope!!...

found it:

1. MI window/cover closed (500-700 nm response)
2. MI window/cover open (400-700 nm response)

maybe subtracting the two you could get a plausible blue representation. but would need to split green/red. one could arbitrarily try different ratios on the cover closed pic and see what happens.. would be very approximate of course - but maybe better than nothing.. need to play with it some..

Scidude, after looking at many pancam spectra it became clear to me that the R7R2R1 filter combination would provide nearly as good a differentiation between materials as the spectrum itself; R7 and R1 span the maximum spectrum range, and R2 is near the center of the range, in a location which is an important one in the spectra. This is why I create these types of enhanced images and refer to them as "geology enhanced". I used this combination in my attempt at colorizing the MI rathole image because it provided better contrasts than the visible L4L5L6 combination.

I managed the coloration by rescaling and rotating the pancam color image of the rathole to approximately the same size (in pixels) and orientation as the MI image, then using Corel Photopaint's clone tool to copy just the color of the pancam image to the MI image.

Incidentally, using just two color components works pretty well; that's how the color stereo pair was produced, since there are only two shared filters between the left and right cameras. In Corel Photopaint I split the images into their RGB components, delete the two components from each image I don't need, then combine the remaining two components (red/blue) into the final image.

My first impression was that the white material looks like calcium carbonate or something like that - but of course it could be any of a number of minerals - fascinating stuff though.

scratch that idea - couldn't get colorizing via the two microscope bands to work. first problem is the optics seem to change just enough between open and closed that the images offset/resize some.. after painstakingly aligning/resizing and then subtracting they produced an almost completely dark/black blue channel on an image that should have had a strong blue response. giving up.. overlaying pancam colors using some type of automated spacial mapping/alignment technique would be the way to go -- code nasa undoubtedly has..

Speaking of nasa code, I'd really like to lay hands on that software (called Vis or Viz) that they use to convert stereo images to a 3D model. Could really have SO much fun with that.

Great images, clark. Have you seen the rover forum at:
http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?act=idx

It seems to be populated mostly by people who are interested in imaging.

I too am struck my the light color of the dust produced by this rat. The ones in Eagle crater produced reddish dust. The ones on Humphrey and Mazatzal produced gray and blue-gray dust. If the color in your first image is anything close to true color, this is very different.

What might produce a white color? Evaporite minerals are the first to come to mind, but as BB said, it could be any of a number of minerals.

Where is that eyedropper with HCL when you need it?