Patterns in a rock at Endurance crater

Take a look at this image. Considering how excited the scientists were when they found cross-bedding in a rock in Eagle crater, the patterns in this rock are surely incredible. Can anyone with some experience in this field comment on what we're actually looking at here?

Great view there.

It sure looks to me like bedding and soft sediment deformation. Maybe some of this strata was not fully indurated when impact occured. Along with cross bedding from sediment movement and sedimentation, there was deformation of the semi-indurated beds. I want a couple of cores at different angles taken of this and about a dozen oriented thin sections for detailed petrograghy in my lab. Can someone make that happen?

I have some pictures of soft sediment deformation and convoluted bedding. But I don't know how to post them here. Can someone assist?

Tom
If you have a photo host or website
simply paste the address in the comments box.
If it is available on someone elses webbsite the same applies.
In your main address bar highlight and copy the address completely.
Then simply right click in the comments box and paste
Add whatever commentary you wish in the same area with space between the address you pasted and your comments and press the post button only once
I hope this helps
Richard

The wind pattern seems to be from the lower left to the upper right across the stone. That accentuates the hardness differences, or rather, the particle size and packing density. A large part of the undulation appearing to vary the thickness of the planes is actually an illusion caused by variable erosion from the left toward the right side.

The angle of the planes to horizontal is tilted upward at the left in reference to the right by about 20-30 degrees also. As the wind flattens the stone surface toward the horizontal currently, it leaves a set of bedding planes cut across at 45-60 degrees.
That angling leaves very slight differences in the erosion from the left to be magnified as variation in flatness appearing from our line of sight.
Please correct me if my presumptions are wrong and inaccurate in particulars, this is a first view for me, without enlargement.

I can tell from reading the entries of others that this is understood by most everyone, however I know many people read these topics and become lost in the number of details that have to be assessed and studied.

I can see unusual patterns, rod-like objects, curved tubes, and odd shaped fill areas, all showing a busy environment existing at the time the mineral planes formed. Presuming they formed periodically it would be a great place for things biological. I suppose we don't have a detailed survey of the entire slab with Micro cameras.

The wind follows the stone around both sides and seems to move perpendicular upon reaching the back(right) side.

Plastic deformation looks to me to be less active than fluctuating acidity and deposition variations over three dimensional objects which lay at various layers.

Some solid objects in the layers are occurring in limited time frames, and without enlargement I don't see any angular fractured stone, nor much variation in the deposition material particle size throughout.

This is very similar to Eagle crater with more large embedded unidentified objects. Some look extremely non-geological.
Long rods.
Curved rod shapes.
Segmented complex assemblies.

There is now an extensive MI panorama of this rock at http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/micro_imager/2004-05-31/

Some of the stereo overlaps are awesome.

Thanks, Horton, these are all amazing MI shots. In some ways, they support the "standard" theory that berries have eroded from halite deposits, in that this rock is loaded with berries in various degrees of removal. But I find it interesting that all the embedded berries appear somewhat rough and irregular compared to those on the surface of the rock, which look shiny and "new." Perhaps they have just been polished by the winds of time, but here and elsewhere, I'm starting to think we have fresh berries mixed among very old fossil berries, with new ones forming on soil and old ones beneath the soil and embedded in rocks.

Zoinks, what a rock!

Wow those MI images are amazing. I agree the spherules that are more exposed look much more shiny than the ones still mostly embedded in the rock, but how could it possibly be that the more exposed spherules are newer? IT does not seem possible to me. There may be a salty crust that erodes quickly, leaving a very shiny spherule. Then, the shiny spherules erode much more slowly into the more decomposed looking spherules that we see "loose" on the surface.

I want to compose a mosaic from these MI images, I hope the JPL team does this like they did it for the "dells" mosaic, which is one of my favorites.

This photograph kept me staring at it for a long time. This is definitely one for the geologists to hurdle.

For anyone interested in "newly formed" berrymakers, please ask and I will be happy to show you where you can see a few.

I did a crappy mosaic of the MI images. It was not easy and the alignment is not perfect, but you can see the big picture nicely. The image is about 4 megs, so be warned this link is a BIG file

Endurance MI Mosaic

Happy viewing. Glad I could finally contribute something useful.

sorry to break the bad news, but I'm getting a bandwidth error. Guess everyone tried to connect at once...

oops, I forgot geocities limits my bandwidth, so if too manmy people download my image it will get shut down temporarily. Anyone have a better site there they want to mirror my image?

Damn, I'll try to fix the problem, but meanwhile if anyone wants the whole thing I can send you an email.

My email is:

rlewis6@yahoo.com

Damn the image is really cool and I worked hard to stitch the damn thing together. Toughest jigsaw puzzle I ever solved!

Ok, I found a trick. I posted the large MI mosaic on the Mars Fossils yahoo group. You have to join to see the photo albums, sorry, that is annoying, but it is the best I can do for now.

Anyone know of another place I can put it with unrestricted access?

Also, the BLOG wont let me post the URL for the mars fossils yahoo group, but it is:

Mars Fossils yahoo group at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

It will not let me post the URL, but it should be easy to find the group, I hope. Try to navigate to it through the Yaoo Groups site.

Ah hah!

Anglefire! let us see if they are any better:

ONLY if you want the whole thing, 4MB:

click here

Well, no, angelfire is no better

But, I think I fixed the problem on my yahoo site, which is much much better now:

Endurance MI Mosaic

If that does not work, you can still try to go to the yahoo group for mars fossils, but you still need to join to see the images in the photo album.

If anyone can help me post this somewhere where people can see it better that would be great.

Im shrank down the image a lot but there is still a link to the full ress image if you want it.

Try photobucket. Just google it.

"I want a couple of cores at different angles taken of this and about a dozen oriented thin sections for detailed petrograghy in my lab. Can someone make that happen? "

Frustrating isn't it?

Some of these images are just so clear, but images alone tell us very little.

Thanks for your hard work RLewis, nice mosaic.

The more I look at these MI's the more features I see that look some in the Pennsylvanian evaporite and algal mound sequences I have seen in cores from the Paradox Basin in Utah.

The elongate vugs, diagenetically altered through replacement and crystal growth and dare I say almost a micritized look.

In these Pennsylvanian sequences, some of the vugs originally were evaporite minerals (grown either in situ or early diagenetic) subsequently dissolved or replaced. But some of the elongate vugs (depending on the facies) were phylloid algal blades.

These indeed are some very strange rocks. Some of the rounded edges on crystals look almost like dissolution edges from percolating solutions.

Do we have any clue as to how deep some of these rocks were buried? We see features that are normally associated with burial diagenesis and subsequent uplift and later alteration. Just curious to see how much pressure and possibly elevated temperatures might have played a role in the formation of what we see at the surface today.

Thanks, hope everyone enjoys the mosaic. I think I sorted out the bandwidth issues. Also, I realized from the sun angle the image was upside down, I flipped it 180 now.

And, about evaporites, I agree. And, here is an exciting theory. Suppose we had a large mass of matrix which is soluble in water, ie evaporite salt deposits, but mixed in with insoluble particles, the hematite spherules. If there is aven small amounts of water seasonal surface water, or even a brine, the water would over time dissolve the soluble matrix and transport it away, leaving only the insoluble particles, the hematite. This is why the hematite is concentrated at meridiani, at least on the surface, because it is the remnant of a much larger deposit of mixed salty matrix with spherules, basically what we see in the eagle unit.

Also, the layers might represent a saesonal deposition record. Evaporation and thus precipitated deposition of th matrix would be faster in the summer, and slower in the winter, which would produce a layered record in the matirx, like tree rings. I still think the spherules are biogenic. They might be simple spherical colonies of halophilic microbes which somehow concentrate either iron or hematite and deposit it as fossilized spherules.