On The Road Again! - Page 15

yes it is likely a limited fault and whether or not it is a strike-slip variety is certainly open to interpretation. the fault or crack also appears to encompass an area towards the center of the image where one side may have been pulled away from the other side.

MI EDF of soil:

I never tire of looking at the fine detail in the soil...

target Crete after IDD examination:

with a link to a partially colorized MI panorama. Unfortunately, the MI field of view was not completely in the frame.

Sol 1759 ( Jan 4, 2009 ) super color saturated L456 sunset:

That’s what I am talking about. Give me some butterscotch with a blue huge. I am starting to believe.

Don, Don, Don?

Fred

It is so easy to say, with no skin in the game.

For Doug and Don I say, “I wish you was here."

Fred

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DXCHa9BYfE

what are the "round" objects in the Spirit photos from sol 1763? the last 8 picts on the right of the pict. interesting

Henry>>>>

Is that YOU....returning from a lengthly spell of NO-POSTS.

If so, welcome back!

yt
dx

er, Henry, do you mean the rocks on the northern edge of homeplate? See reply 12 on this Spirit thread.

Walking Mars Rocks. Interesting.

I learned this way of moving big rounded boulders from my dad as a kid on the farm.
The only problem is that you have to dig a deeper hole each time you move it.

I learned how to move big rounded boulders this way as a kid on the farm.
The only problem is you have to dig a deeper depression each time it rolls forward !!!!

Horton, Yes interesting, Thanks. Many months ago I started a thread here titled something like "Spaced Apart - A Theme at Gusev". I even used some of the same images as those included with the article as illustrations of the spacing phenomenon. I like that this is a gradualist theory of rock movement. It always seemed to me that Mars winds catastrophic enough to move pebbles directly would concentrate them together not spread them apart. If only the smaller particles supporting the pebbles are moved they usually spread out. I'll have to think about how this possibility changes the big picture for me.

Ben, You have pointed out one limitation to the proposition - to move a pebble a long distance a lot of material would have to be removed lowering the whole surface.

re 388. Interesting ! If Pelletier's analysis is right, then I wonder why the same phenomenon is not observed with the berries on the plains at Opportunity site.

denis, This "deflation" process doesn't satisfy me as an explantion of the loose spherule distributions at Meridiani, but it is one example of gradual processes that could be in play. I keep wondering how thick frost or snow could act, or daily temperature changes. Here is an image I've been contemplating:

It seems likely that whatever process has created the spherule distributions visible on the horizontal annulus; that same process has created the distributions on the slopes of this little crater. They are so alike and so close together. It is especially strange that the process seems unaffected by the degree of slope. The creation or long distance transport of the spherules could have happened early in Mars' history, but their small-scale arrangement here must have been accomplished after this little impact crater formed and even after the crater walls have been somewhat smoothed by erosion. No?

I'm at a loss, and still willing to consider the possibility that the spherules have formed were they are. If wind has directly moved the spherules it would not have left them resting on the slopes of this crater in the same density as on a horizontal surface or in a depression. Similar distributions seem to have formed everywhere on the crater slopes where larger breccia doesn't interfere. Spherules have not collected above the protruding rocks on the slopes or rolled down between the rocks to form fans. The many rocks on the plain have no visible tails of spherules or other influence on adjacent berry arrangements.

Does the "deflation" model help? Deflation can't explain transport of spherules for a distance much greater than the depth of fine material that has been removed. I suppose it could be a few times further because the spherules could roll down a gentle slope (or a long series of tiny temporary gentle slopes), but this seems an unlikely mechanism to move them half way across the Victoria annulus.
Wind deflation would stop when enough spherules had been uncovered to protect the surface from further erosion. The annulus seems to be covered in only a very thin layer of soil to judge by the depth of the rover tracks. If the spherules have been uniformly spread out by the deflation of a thick layer of soil, is it too great a coincidence that the process ran out of wind-mobile material just as the surface was almost covered with spherules?

sol 1160 2x L257 of reply 316 created from original data:

To me the most puzzling features of this image is the broken rocks with berry "pockets" ( little doughnuts )typically about twice the size of a berry. Were these areas of the rock "squeezed outwards" and compressed by the, um, growth ( life not implied ) of the berries? Is this a normal feature of concretions?

Now about all that very fine dust at the bottom of the crater next of a large rock...

If the berries walked into the crater, why didn't they walk or roll right up to the rock? What keeps this area free of berries?

I'm sure a rock guy will make this all clear...

Well>>>

I thought we had this question of berries put to rest, what with the distribution analysis and locations of movements. To me, long ago, these concretions were obviously harder than the rock they were embedded within. And over the 'X' eons of Mars-time finally popped out leaving a pit within the mother rock.
At least that is how I explained it to myself when no one here answered my 'Q' about the pits in the rocks. To me it was a natural 'next thing' to realize that the pits were the remnants of the concretions hiding place!

yt
dx
BTW>>> that is not the Henry we knew or know, for he has many posts behind the nome-de-plume.

> If the berries walked into the crater, why didn't they walk or roll right up to the rock? What keeps this area free of berries?

Maybe they did roll right up to the rock, but somehow got subsequently covered by a layer of whatever that smooth material is? (Fine-grained dust or maybe dried-out silt.)

Some good answers guys.
First, I speculate that the little crater is fairly young because the ejecta is somewhat angular.
The raised areas around the berry sockets and some of the intact berries as well, is not a common feature but can best be explained as induration of the host rock around the berry by the same process that caused the growth of the concretion.

I suspect there are berries beneath the dust layer next to the rock and the dust layer may be a transient phenomena associated with the last global dust storm.
Given enough time before the next dust storm may allow removal of the dust and accumulation of more berries rolling into the depression.

Not much happens on Mars so the glimpses we get may represent fairly long periods of time.

RE reply 286. Is that from the original Henry?

Fred

sol 1768 (Jan 13, 2009 ) RAT diagnostic:

Perhaps not even the brush works any more?

The Santorini Conjunction Stop is now almost two months long. Several pancam sequences called "next drive" have been done -- but no next drive.

Also on sol 1768 a super-resolution L26R12 sequence was done on the target Corsica which I am looking forward to processing.