Duck Bay Adventure

Thought it was time ( at last!) to start a new topic on the exploration of Duck Bay.

sol 1281 L257R2 of interesting science target in Duck Bay:

This rock is about 15 meters from Oppy's current position and has some doodads that might be interesting on closer inspection.

This image links to its parent image -- and that links to a panorama.

The L257 images have all been processed with horticolor dusting and cleaning services: We don't do windows -- but we do do lenses.

From 08/31/2007 The Planetary Sociery Rover Update:

"Opportunity is poised, literally with front wheels practically hanging over the edge of Victoria Crater, so we are right there at Duck Bay and very close to being ready to go in," said Squyres on his return from the Arctic. "We have a few tests we want to tick off before we go into the crater. But we're there."

BUT at the end of the article in the detailed discussion of Oppy's operations:

On Sol 1278 (August 29, 2007), Opportunity bumped into a position right near the rim. Over the Labor Day weekend, the rover is slated to take new reconnaissance pictures of the planned entry point at Duck Bay, which is about 40 meters (131 feet) away. "We're a little concerned about what the dust storms might have done to change the terrain and the entry site," said Matijevic.

Just exactly when Opportunity will enter the crater will depend on assessments of those images and other data that may reveal how dust is affecting the instruments and of how much energy will be available. But Arvidson, Matijevic, and Blaney seemed certain September will be a month to remember.

So -- poised ready to go -- or still weeks away and several drives before entry?

Two months ago my best guess for the entry point was here:

Simulated 3D Opportunity entering Duck Bay:

The rover is about 28 meters away in this image.

sol 1275 L257 ( raw / dusty lens corrected) of outcrop on rim of Duck Bay:

Still playing with flat-sky dusty-lens correction.

Hi Hort,

Thanks for the link, amazing when you read that Oppy nearly got wiped by the storm, now the falling dust is potentially a problem. What is a "Doodad" ?

Mann:

Doodad=whatyoumaycallit=thingy

Horton, reply 3

Pretty impressive corrections!

Ah thingyology of course silly me.

That thingy looks like a Conch.

The big hurdle here is the falling dust, grip is the most important thing and nothing could be more tricky than rolling down a slope hitting an outcrop with a very thin covering of dust this could make oppy surf in. The skid/traction mechanism may stop it from going where the drivers want it to go, power levels will drop because of the fallout however the aspect of the slope will help gain more sunlight thus getting into the panels.
An adventure indeed Hort this is one challenge for sure but everything we have waited for. Go Oppy go! and good luck!
This is the final journey for this MER for sure there will be no way back as getting out is harder than going in. We shall learn a lot in there.

Looks like a nice flat piece of crater wall that fell and slid down to an accessable point. At least it will be a great chance to study the texture/surface/composition of middle height walls of victoria currently out of reach

sol 1285 R0 1x3 near Duck Bay:

Now about 20 meters from the sol 951 position! It will be one Earth year Sept 27, 2007.

Sol 951 R0:

The images used for this panorama - and all the linked images from the panorama - had an experimental "dusty lens" correction applied.

Wow Horton nice images!
The adventure continues, can't wait to see the next locations!
Regarding the "science target in Duck Bay" and "some doodads":

The doodads appear to be two altered rock shapes within a more homgenous chunk.

1 They might have been formed during the original deposition of the sediments tat are now exposed.

2 Maybe they formed during the crater formation or are a combination of 1 and 2.

3 Looks to me that it might represent material altered through a chemical reaction/alteration. Could be a combination of 1,2 and 3. Maybe water (ground water with minerals and atmospheric and subsurface water vapor alteration played a part.

The doodads appear to consuming the rock like a rust-like reaction or a corrosive material.

Biological?
Rock eating blobs, ya gotta love em.

Hopefully we'll get a closer look, it's hard to see any details at that distance.

Regarding Reply 3:
Lots of nice split pea berries here, a perfect opportunity to snap a few MIs of split berries before plunging over the cliff.

Hi Hort

Very interesting image in your #1.

I've converted it to an anaglyph for the few x-eyed challenged here.

Original size here

Seems to me that there is either a thick growth of berries or of festoons in the cracks comprising the "doodads" and that the rock looks as if it has been split and forced upward at the split by pressure from below. If there are berries in the raised portion, how would they have got there and remained there defying gravity? (They would definitely not be in depressions in this case)

Hope that they indeed try to get a good, no filter barred, very close up, look the doodads and the rock itself. I wonder also if there might be some desert varnish on the rock also as appears to be the case on the other evaporite rock on the approach to duck bay that was given a close up treatment.

Winston

Hort nice pan (reply 9). You otta work for NASA. Another question comes to mind here. That little scatter of rocks. They are almost equidistant from each other. I have noticed this MANY times in past images. Depending on their sizes, they seem to have a set distance between each other. What kind of sorting is this?

thanks for all the images.

Is the bathtub ring, at the same elevation as the one in Endurance?
i think they thought it was the transition point of the water table at Endurance.

If its not, this raises a few questions.

Has anyone came up with what the purple stains are, besides the few of of use who thinks it is a microbial varnish?

Quick look at the view as Oppy approaches The Edge...

Oppy sol 1286 R0 1x4 nearing duck bay:

a "dusty lens" correction was applied to the images.

reply 3 L257R1256 detail of imbedded blueberries:

with a link to the full 3D.

Notice that the tail behind the central berry spans a faint white outcrop layer -- and that the white layer wraps around the tail.

Perhaps the tail is a line of berries not yet eroded from the matrix?

A curious observation:

Notice that in the collection of berries in the lower right the small berries far outnumber the large berries -- but not a single small berry is imbedded on the surface of the outcrop?

Where did the smaller berries come from?

Are they "just" worn fragments of the large berries? Notice the large number of berry halves in the pile.

Exactly how hard are the blueberries? -- and how difficult is it to erode them?? -- and how long would it take to go from a whole berry to a pile of small round fragments???

Many questions -- damn few answers.

Reply #16

Great observations Hort.
The little berries appear to prefer cracks.
I wonder if they formed within the cracks and grew over time or filled the cracks as a result of berry movement over time (and because the larger berries wouldn't fit in the small cracks).

It sure looks like some kind of funk is developing in those cracks, a closer look would be great.

Look at those beautiful split berries!!!
I can see a dark colored nucleation point in at least 2 halves (maybe halves of the same whole). If I was driving the rover I'd get a better look at more of these berry guts. What is the dark colored stuff in there? a depression? dark chemical? a smaller darker sphere?

HOrt

Some very insighful and perceptive questions in your #16.

Re. the small berries. This is a somewhat slightly anomalous image as usually the berries on the outcrop sits in a bed of dark material in which dust or sandy material is present, not small berries. Small berries are usually found on the plains or microchannels surrounding the large ones. Around Erebus there were a few rocks that were found that had only these smaller berries embedded, no big ones.

Could the rather high incidence of split berries be correlated with the number of small berries on the rocks? I am almost convinced that the splitting of the berries is an inbuilt mechanism related to the radial split planes that have been observed in several MIs of berries from the earliest ones and that splitting occurs following certain unknown environmental cues. How the small berries fit into this picture I am not certain.

Winston

Winston: did you note that a couple of the large berries are composed of an agglomeration of small berries stuck together. Sort of look like a blackberry.

Is Oppy's MI not functioning? Maybe it needs a little exercize to shake some dut off. This would be a good place to exercize it a little (hint, hint)...