4)The increasing concentration of salt was a prediction I made based on the Endurance lake idea. In my dreamtime I see Endurance as a "deep" spot in a very shallow Meridiani Sea that was the last gasp of the wet epoch.
Specifically, what other causes do you suggest, and what are your predictions about what will be found at Burns Cliff?
3) Perhaps I didn't make myself clear by describing the beds as horizontal.
What I was talking about was the numerous lower bands on Burns Cliff which I argue are not the edges of successive layers -- but rather the top of one bed with successive changes in conditions in the waters of Endurance lake -- once it was isolated from the rest of the dying sea.
I postulate the "cap" of dark basalt on Burns Cliff was above the lake as it dried out and that the bands are "ripple marks" on a very short and steep beach that were deposited as the waters evaporated.
2) I'm glad you mentioned Fram crater! Now that's what I would expect to see in a crater created after the water epoch.
The material lining Endurance was created at the same time as the material in Eagle and Fram.
We have seen only surface material that participated out of solution of a common shallow sea.
1) Perhaps "ripple" is the wrong word to use for the banding on the lower portion of Burns Cliff.
I was trying to imagine a seasonal wind driven process to concentrate the spherules rolling against a steep beach, because once isolated, I couldn't think of a way to change the chemistry in the lake in a long periodic way.
But perhaps there were wet episodes after the lakes isolation that brought fresh water to the crater that changed the rates of deposition.
I think that the tale of Endurance is the ending chapter of story of surface water on Mars.
Thinking up alternative histories beats late night television -- and it's a way of testing the "accepted" dogma.
Say, is there an accepted theory yet?
