Psssst...

<< Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington                    March 22, 2004
(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-5011)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N04-044

NASA ANNOUNCES MAJOR MARS ROVER FINDING

     NASA will announce a major scientific finding at a Space
Science Update (SSU) Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST, in the headquarters
Webb Auditorium, 300 E St. SW, Washington. The Mars Exploration
Rover (MER) Opportunity is exploring the martian Meridiani
Planum and recently discovered evidence rocks at the landing
site have been altered by water.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe will make opening remarks. SSU
panelists:

--Dr. Ed Weiler, NASA's Associate Administrator, Office of
Space Science
--Prof. Steve Squyres, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and
MER Principal Investigator
--Prof. John Grotzinger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Mass, and a MER Co-investigator
--Dr. Dave Rubin, U.S. Geological Survey Sedimentologist at the
Pacific Science Center in Santa Cruz, Calif.
--Dr. Jim Garvin, NASA Lead Scientist for Mars and the Moon,
Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters >>

Well, what do we think THAT could be about? The NASA head-honcho introducing a panel that includes the main science guy and a sedimentologist? Hmmm...

Just speculating here, but the Opportunity rover has been taking a LOT of pictures of the so-called "blueberries" in the past few days, many showing what appear to be holes in them... and Opp has stayed in that crater a LOT longer than expected...

Something's "up", definitely

Ah, read the press release in a rush. Obviously should have posted that in the Opportunity forum instead.

My apologies.

Maybe it's about the bright layer in the digged trench.

Tom

--Dr. Dave Rubin, U.S. Geological Survey Sedimentologist at the
Pacific Science Center in Santa Cruz, Calif.

link : CROSS-BEDDING, BEDFORMS, AND PALEOCURRENTS

The graphics explaining different cross-bed shapes are great:
link: cross-bedding formed both by fluctuating flow and superimposed bedforms
link: Structures produced by ripples with a fluctuating positive angle of climb

He has published papers explaining how computer simulations of a variety of conditions would produce specific shapes in bedforms (specificially, how different shapes of crossbedding relate to the conditions that produced them). He might be speaking tomorrow to explain, specifically, what the shape of the bedrock layers mean as to the former water.
Hopefully they're coming back to say "we knew there was water, now we can say for sure it was surface water and here's what we know about it".


that being said, its also possible this has little to do with water, as many of his references are to dune structures formed completely in the absense of water.

Just a few minutes now, I'm guessing that they will announce that the layers observed were formed by standing water over a long time, and that there was enough wave action to form sand. Just a guess!

Bryan

Well - after Seaney Sean Sean Sean waffled on a bit, evidence that the rocks were layed down as sedimentary rock in a salty sea.

There's a good summary at:

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/opportun...sea_040323.html