OK, now SOMEBODY can take this and modify appropriately...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000296M...1092658884_.jpg

Great mosaics as usual! I thought exactly the same about going left. This looks like the best direct path to me:

Click to view attachment

Not that I'm back seat driving or anything.

QUOTE (clt510 @ Jul 12 2006, 06:13 PM)

Not that I'm back seat driving or anything.

You (only) want to be Tesheiner assistant eh

I think there are plenty of space on the back seat!
I want to be at the window!

Your panoramas are striking and very well done. Do you have a favorite?

I'm also anxious to try out your software.

That's the first thing I noticed. I don't think this is a coincidence.

Do you mean that they appear concentric? I haven't been correlating Oppy's orientation/cam bearing with the fractures...would be VERY interesting if VC's formation caused radial cracking of the 'bedrock'.

QUOTE (Tesheiner @ Jul 12 2006, 06:34 PM)

I want to be at the window!

So, for landing, I'll have the ED...Aile

I've been looking at the fractures/joints. I imagine that the best way would be to make a polar projection from a 360 degree panorama and then measure the orientations. It would be hard to do from flat images.

I'm inclined to wait til our Polar-Meister, Mr Stooke, returns.

--Bill

But, on further reflection, on the light outcrop to the West of Beagle I see some interesting detail, some of which might not be sand drifts. As shown on this re-cycled re-re-route map cloned from Mr. Tesheiner's map. Hopefully, we'll get a close look at this area and determine it's nature.

--Bill

Good call. In the end, that turn to the right really seemed to be the best option.

Regarding the fractures, will this sol 876 vertical view from MMB help in Phil's absence? I've cropped it to show mostly the local bedrock. There are a lot of fracture directions, but the main SSWW/NNE trending set is running at approximately -155 degrees. The roughly crosswise set is approximately EW at about 90-100 degrees. Nothing here points definitively at Victoria, but on previous sols the fractures appeared to have different orientations. I think this bedrock has a more complex history than we would like it to have.Click to view attachment

edit: forgot to mention that the orientation of that image is with 180 degrees south at the top.

It's too early to make a conclusion that they're concentric to VC, but I'm nearly convinced that they were formed by the same event that wasn't local to the rock. Minor candidates to cause similarly oriented cracking would include local subsidence due to ground water movement and of course Beagle Crater. No sense ruling them or perhaps other explanations out right away.

But having the position/orientation of these cracks on the map would be fantastic should we run into any more.

EDIT: Looking at the radial projection above, those predominant cracks can't be concentric to VC.

Tom, that radial projection is close to what I was thinking about. I conjured up something similar in PShop. You could almost fit these joint orientations to a stress-strain ellipsoid.

We are likely too far from Victoria now to see any hopeful fractures, but it's not too close to look for patterns in the fractures. I'd suspect that any fracturing would be close to a crater, within a very few diameters. What I'd be looking for in this outcrop area next to the dark ejecta apron is to determine if the evaporite here is the usual undisturbed material or if it is re-emplaced as the bottom layer of the ejecta blanket. I'm going to quit using the "splat" term because there is a brine-splat supposition floating around that has taken on the aura of a cult.

You may recall that in the Olympia outcrop at Erebus I observed a fracture with lateral displacement (??), rather like a strike-slip fault, so we should be on the lookout for disruption of this unit.

--Bill

New pictures are starting to show up on exploratorium...
Looks like there's been quite a drive on sol877...

Good progress, yes

Indeed.
WRT your estimated position I would just move it a couple of meters to the left, nearer to the ripple inbetween the little outcrop (right) and the cobble field (left).

Net drive: 27m (parallax)

Clear path up to Beagle Crater!

Click to view attachment
(Sol 877 3x1 navcam mosaic, L2-filter)

Edited: Added the path to the picture.

Hello.

By seeing Sol 876 images, I notice that the size of the dunes (ripples?) is smaller than the previous sols. If it's right, the rover progression will be easier.

Man, there is a huge dune right under our noses. I'll be surprised if they risk that.

Huge?
It's aprox. 0.3m high (parallax).

Here is a combined Navcam/Pancam perspective view for Sol 877:


And the Pancam drive direction mosaic (nice Victoria features on the horizon left, check out the full size version):


This might seem like a reasonable place to cross the drift - or not. If they don't cross here, it looks to me like a long detour ahead. We'll see what happens...

I think Oppy will be able to drive along the trough lined up with the LGA in mhoward's navcam mosaic.

Notice that the evaporite bedrock surface is becoming very uneven the closer we get to Beagle. Some of this may be due to the disturbace at Beagle, and we may find that this is also from the ejecta apron of Victoria. Now to sort the two out...

Here is a 3x vertical exaggeration view of a Sol 877 Navcam. The western edge of Beagle is on the left.

--Bill

If somebody makes a pan from the current position, I'll do a polar of it... back at last!

Phil

Beautiful triple-crater view from the current location: first the little unnamed crater (mid left edge to centre), then Beagle behind it, and finally smooth Victoria looming much farther back still:
Click to view attachment

Oh - we're one drift away from "Alpha"! Once again it's hard to see it unless in 3D, even when it's right in front of us.

Edit: I hope we go through the trough that Bill notes - I don't think Alpha is worth a stop, it just seems the easiest way.

Here is a screen-grab of a pair of images of the ejecta apron northwest of Victoria. Both are from MOC image R1500022; the right image is from Tesheiner's Route Map and shows "normal" contrast, the left image is of the same area and has had the contrast and sharpness increased to show subtle detail. Beagle is at top and the unnamed little crater in Fredk's image is above and to the left. Although the ejecta apron is not a choppy sea of ripples it is hardly a flat and featureless plain.


--Bill

Wanna fight with Steve ?
"The interesting thing is once you get beyond Beagle, the nature of the terrain changes rather dramatically as you can see in the orbital images," Squyres points out. "When you look at the orbital images, you can clearly see the terrain we're in right now is covered by these huge ripples and it looks treacherous, but just south of Beagle, all the ripples stop and it's an absolutely gray, featureless surface."

Squyres is being a bit melodramatic. Look at the two images, features are visible on the apron.

--Bill

There are 3-4 fresh bright impact craters and an older darker crater south of Tesheiners route to the rim.
Also an interesting lighter area (which may or may not be easy to traverse) along Tesheiner's route.

Anybody else see small n/s dunes on the left/west side of the apron?

(FWIW I vote we drive due south and use the craters as stepping stones to the rim. )

Last drive of the week tosol (878) - note the work volume pancams.

Hopefully we'll be near Alpha and can get some decent weekend images.

Yeah. I wouldn't mind getting a better view of Alpha. I was expecting it from the route map, but as previously mentioned by MH, it is not really obvious until you look at the 3D view. The "work volume" pancams have really got me curious. I assume the "work volume" will be one after the drive, so where might it be?

I noticed an anomaly in the navcams from sol 876 that hasn't been mentioned. When I saw this image yesterday, I couldn't help but notice the dark diagonal line on the left side. At first glance, it appeared to be an area of disturbed soil that was roughly aligned with the local bedrock fractures...something we have seen many times, but this didn't appear to be a real feature upon better inspection.

It became more curious after I noticed that it appeared in the left, but Click to view attachmentnot the right Navcam. This must be some kind of camera anomaly. Here is a retarded flicker gif made from the image pair. This seems to be a more significant anomaly than those caused previously by cosmic rays and such.

It looks like the terrain might be similar to Erebus northern detour. Here are a set of mosaics made by Jvandriel on those times, and may be examples of the sort of ripples the rover would have to manage.

I agree Bill. I also can see things that the PI can't
After Tesheiner post trying to show us what we'll probably see once on the apron, I'm thinking about the orientation/organisation of the ripples. If their are wind related i.e. wind coming from the inside of VC they'll be perpendicular to Oppy track. Do you agree ?

Sol 878 pics available: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...cam/2006-07-14/

Here below is an annotated navcam pano (sol 877) with the actual movement (yellow). It's reused from yesterday; in cyan my previous "back seat" driver's proposal.

Click to view attachment

Edited: Calculated net drive: 28m.

Maybe they have decided to bypass "Beagle" and head straight for the escarpment near that dark, small crater "Beta" and high tail it to Victoria as fast as possible.

Bypassing Beagle just might happen, if it is going to take another week to get over to it, and if mini-tes and pan cam are showing nothing of interest. I would vote to pass it by. Lets get out of these dunes!

I wouldn't expect that they would bypass Beagle. This "roadcut" represents an opportunity to look at the stratigraphy and lithology of the Burns Formation just beyond the edge of Victoria's ejecta blanket. This window was last peeked through at Endurance; Erebus was too eroded and the bluff at Payson was too shallow. Admittedly, we will/may see the same thing at Victoria, but we may not be able to get as close as we can at Beagle.

--Bill

It is too early to know if they are going to bypass Beagle. My money is on them cutting hard left as soon as the sharp dunes soften to something that looks more manageable.

I wonder if they might follow the ripples south to the patch of exposed evaporite at the edge of the ejecta blanket. then move norrth-east to Beagle. It might be easier driving, and would allow examination of more exposed rock and the margin of the blanket.

Chris

PS. I'd draw what I mean, but I don't have the tools available on this machine.

I know what you mean, Chris. I think they are headed for the apron, and I think it's quite possible they will bypass Beagle for now - it's taking too much time to get there, it doesn't look that accessible once we get there, and I don't know if it even looks interesting enough to warrant the kind of time it would take to check it out - not when Victoria is almost within reach. If they do get closer to Beagle, it will probably be via your route or via the apron.

Sol 878 90-degree perspective view due south:


60-degree drive-direction view:


(Someone else will have to do the Pancam mosaic; I can't get Autostitch to behave today.)

Yowza, I'd be surprized if they don't stop to sniff the sulfates at Beagle.... but it sure seems like they are just blazing on by. I wonder if the ejecta rocks picqued someone's interest?

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...AZP0695L0M1.JPG

I presume these rocks were from Beagle, and not VC's apron?

Anyways, Beagle seems like one of the freshest impact craters ever sampled on Mars. That alone would be worth a decent pan, right? But more importantly, it's a baseline to the top layer of VC crater too... but maybe that's already well understood and VC is too big a draw?

Just some rough and ready stitching as I've not done some for a while - Vic details are coming on quite strong...a little perch on some Beagle outcrop and we might get an even better view.

Doug

Well, maybe they're hoping it'll be a simple matter to circle around to it once we get to the apron. We'll see.

That's exactly what I meant. It gives them the ability to examine things close up, and decide which is the most important.

Chris

The rock in the lower right of that Pancam that Marz showed is interesting because of the dark-toned zone on it. I'm going to guess that the ejecta rocks here is likely from Beagle. Of interest, too, is the crater in Doug's stitched and stretched image. I'm thinking that the crater is "Alpha" and it seems to be disturbing only the ejecta blanket strata.

I'm hoping for a Pancam of the two-toned rock, and possibly some L5's to go with the L2 and L7's we have of the wheel marks.

Beaucoup good science here, boys and girls, let's not rush...

--Bill

I thought they were going to approch Beagle from the North so they could have parked Oppy on the North facing rim and recharge the batteries while studying the crater.

If you look at the upper right end on the big image, you'll see a faint line going left and a white dot on it. Nothing of that is present in the other image. It's hardly a cosmic ray. It seems to me that Oppy got really lucky and captured a real dislocation in progress (I'm not a geologist, I don't know the right term for that). Maybe a slab of evaporite moved a little bit under the sand?

The only other explanation I can think of would be an object flying between the camera and the soil, but it's even less plausible. How fast would it move? Do you know the exposition time for the navcam?

QUOTE (Pavel @ Jul 14 2006, 05:41 PM)

It seems to me that Oppy got really lucky and captured a real dislocation in progress (I'm not a geologist, I don't know the right term for that). Maybe a slab of evaporite moved a little bit under the sand?

Do you mean that Oppy passing by could have make the thing happen? I have no idea if it's possible but this is not the first time we apparently see some disturbance very close to the rovers.

The two images are taken at the same moment - it's not an actual event, it's just an imaging articfact on one camera.

Doug