I've been wondering how far Opportunity will go clockwise around the North Rim before she turns around to find the best place to enter Victoria.

My feeling is she will go to the larger dark band material located between D1 & D2 of Tesheiner Route Map to examine that before she turns around and heads back to either Duck Bay or Bottomless Bay to enter Victoria?

Long Term twin peaks off in the distance???

They are going to where there is the greatest horizontal exposure of stratigraphy which was stated to be 120 degrees clockwise from Duck Bay.

Edit:

On Tesheiner's map, I'd say it is likely they'll want to get to D5 so as to take some observations of the southeast side of D4 which looks quite interesting. If I was speculating, I would also think they will stop a while between D1 and D2 to take some readings on the ground where the thickest band of dark stuff seems to be.

I think it might be fair to ask at this point, is it even reasonable for Opportunity to risk an entry, having not yet observed a deeper stratigraphic unit in this crater that had not been previously studied? Personally, I think entry is likely, since we never were able to put the instruments on the arm directly on rocks below the Wellington contact. I think those rocks are more accessible here. But regarding lower stratigraphy, I just don't see any yet.

It's unclear whether there *IS* hard-rock (or relatively hard) stratigraphy below what we can see. Elswhere, there's evidence, like the double-ring-of-outcrop crater I've discussed elswhere, that the evaporite layers are interbedded with non-consolidated or at least much more erodible layers.

If the evaporite unit's base is just below what we see, the crater walls would have collapsed into the transient cavity until the crater had widened enough that the slope of the unconsolidated layer was no longer exposed or not steep enough to collapse or erode further. Infilling sand and eroded collapse rubble might totally cover any traces of a lower layer.

We just don't have much clues as to how far the evaporite layer goes below what we can see.

according to what's shown on this map:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23209

I think that Bottomless bay is the safest entry route. What we don't know is whether it's a good exit route. But I think they'll decide to go into the crater. The situation with Endurance was pretty much the same. It wasn't known whether the rover will get some day out of the crater.

Svetlio.

Go find the MOC DEM animation fo Victoria crater or just look at the images from the rim.

Yeah - Bottomless Bay is a possible ingress point - but the SE quadrant of Victoria is a MUCH MUCH easier slope to drive down.

Doug

To djellison or anyone else in here

How high is it from the rim to the bottom of the crater at the SouthEast Side Compared to the Northwest Side? Is there much difference??? I know the elevation of the land drops to one side. Thats why us Far Rimmers Lost

If the white layer is the top of the evaporite, and everything above is ejectra, then entering Victoria in the SE quadrant is worthless. In the SE quadrant, the white layer is next the the sand at the bottom of the cratere with no other strata to explore. I could be wrong, but I'm sure Doug or geologists from the "Victoria Stratigraphy" thread can set me straight.

Floyd