On the Road Again - volume 3 - Page 8

sol 2057 ( Nov 6, 2009 ) L234567R1234567 3D of Marquette Island Block:

with a location link and from there to an infrared / visible animation.

sol 2058 ( Nov 7, 2009 ) LoR0 x2 3D of Marquette Island:

I will not spoil the surprise by commenting on this rock...

I look forward to a long and detailed study of this block.

Stratified rock, with at least four layers (tipped from vertical), and a fracture extending partway across. Also suggestions of transverse markings and berries (what is that incomplete S-shaped feature near the top?).
This facing part of the boulder could be 'cemented' to material of different composition behind, or is partly dusted with powdery material.
Appears that gravity influenced the positioning of this boulder (heavy base down). Could have been lowered gently into position from a melting ice field.
James

I'm guessing that Marquette Island will be like Bounce Rock:

Marquette Island like Bounce Rock doesn't have obvious spherules and that is very unusual at Meridiani.

I've been thinking about the spherules. Their uniform spatial distributions where they are attached to rock continue to be evident at every stop along Oppy's travels south. At kilometer scale the size of spherule has changed. They were tiny or absent in the vicinity of Erebus Crater and they were tiny on bedrock at Victoria Crater. They were frequently larger on breccia at Victoria. I think that the rule that has been consistent is that from any one rover station they have displayed distributions that suggest a remarkably uniform presence and local maximum size.

These strange distributions are really the only problem I have with the impact spherule explanation, because it seems so unlikely that such perfect, or better than perfect - more uniform than random, mixing could take place and be so consistent. Maybe I can get somewhere by accepting for the sake of argument that these are just really good random distributions created by an impact event. It seems pretty unlikely, but maybe the spherules could accrete in a cloud, fall into fine-grained surging material, be mixed thoroughly by turbulence and stay mixed until layers have formed and the whole mess has come to rest. For me then, it just has to be one big impact event that has caused all the uniform rock-bound spherule populations. If this has to have happened even twice in the same place I'm already getting off the impact-spherule bus. Is there any reason why all the layered rock with spherules that we have seen couldn't have been created by one big event? I guess my point is that the impact-spherule theory, if accepted, points to fewer and larger impact-sedimentation events in the record at Meridiani.

Anyway, just thinking.

I thought that the determination that the berries were a low temperature formation precluded impact as the explanation? But I would love for them to nudge the rock to see if it is embedded or can be tipped.

sol 2059 ( Nov 8, 2009 ) L234567R1234567 3D of Marquette Island:

Wow. Just wow. If this is fresh ejecta from a fresh crater, prepare to be amazed. Does the microscopic imager still work at all anymore?

Hortonheardawho image at 146. Absolutely outstanding. Doesn't it look as if the left hand side was once the base and the rock has been displaced as a whole. Probably an illusion - but oh the perfection of this image processing!

Serpens, thanks for the kudos.

The false color version is linked from this 180 L0 pan looking south:

with lots of image links, including this one:

I get "Who Fever" when I look at mat-like features like the ones on Marquette Island.

I sure hope there are lots of 3D MI sequences....

( shouting )

I THINK THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ROCKS DISCOVERED SO FAR!

At least a few RAT actions and more MI coverage should be in order here
Very interesting rock - the smaller rocks and pebbles around it as well.

In reply 149, it looks more like partially cemented soil than a fully lithified rock.

In case nobody here noticed yet, Calvin and Hobbes are on Mars right now and just discovered Mars life under a rock that looks pretty much just like this rock :

http://www.calvinandhobbes.com

Serendipity? Premonition? Or just another rock?

Unusual-looking conglomerate rock in top right of these images, and what looks like a smaller fragment towards the bottom right.

I can't wait for higher resolution photo's. My imagination is running wild. Some of the features I think I see, seem water sculpted (like dripstone).

sol 2061 ( Nov 10, 2009 ) L0R0 of Marquette from 2 meters distance:

Not quite close enough for IDD work on the rock. Perhaps a study of the forground first?

sol 2059 R0 5x1 looking north:

with links to cobbles near dune edges.

OK, it looks like the dunes have buried the Marquette cobble field - which rests on the bedrock surface - which implies to me that the bedrock has not eroded very much since the cobbles fell.

Also, the falling cobbles didn't disrupt the bedrock surface very much, so the fall was a low energy event - which means the cobbles are from a relatively nearby cratering event between bedrock formation and dune formation.

But, but - I don't see any imbedded berries in Marquette - so the block must not be bedrock from Meridiani - which puts it at least 100s of kilometers distant - which makes it's creation a high energy event!

But there they lie serenely on the surface.

The only "way out" that I can see was the cobble fall - like the recent meteorite falls - was onto a surface covering the Meridiani bedrock which disappeared completely and lowered the cobbles and meteorites gently before the dunes formed.

I propose a "thin" ( meters thick ) ice/dust layer that covered the entire planet during an "ice ball" climate phase.

Why not?

test

sol 2059 L257R1 of curious hexagonal rock:

assuming the hex pattern is "real", what kind of rocks fracture this way?

Another sol 2059 curious rock:

So many rocks - so little time.

Reference Hortonheardawho's reply 156. Are we absoltely sure that MI is not meteoric? Could it be a part of a fragmented chondrite? For example:

Just a thought.