Utterly amazing, is all, Stu. My <clinking> jaw is sore from dropping. This is significant. Don't know if something's happening now, or if it happened a long, long time ago...but something happened at Meridiani, and it wasn't catastrophic, but gradual, like many terrestrial geological processes. The damn gun is smoking; can hardly wait to hear the experts chime in.

Working from memory - I think we saw this at Endurance crater. Maybe someone more organized than myself will provide a graphic image from way back then.

Jack

We have seen similar morphology before. I read it as a fissure-filling that is harder than the surrounding rock and is therefore more slowly eroded. On Earth this kind of thing is usually due to liquids percolating through a crack, but it can also occur through vapors that sublime on the walls of a crack.

Agree. Probably indicates moisture, if not necessarily liquid water.

-- HDP Don

I agree that at least moisture is likely needed to create these razorback features. We've seen them in Endurance and numerous other outcrops between there and Victoria. They've often been described here as "fracture fillings," but that seems not to be the case. We have seen many images showing these hardened coatings on opposite sides of the fractures. They seem to be a secondary mineralization that has formed on the outside surfaces of the fractured blocks. In most places we have only seen their remnants on the vertical edges of the fractured blocks. Near the target named "lemon rind" we found fractured blocks where the outer coating wrapped around to some horizontal surfaces.

Attached is a recent Victoria example of razorbacks on the outside edges of fractured blocks from sol 1438.

Click to view attachment

CosmicRocker, Agreed, I have made the same point myself on the other Mars blog. There are a few examples of "fills" that actually seem to fill fractures, but the great majority do not. I think that calling all these structures "fills" is based on an unwarranted assumption. They may be, as you suggest, just a variety of "rinds". This paper suggests that the rinds and fills have similar chemistry which is like that of unbrushed rock:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2401.pdf

One thing I do not understand about the paper is that I can't remember any fills or rinds getting IDD work except Roosevelt and Lemon Rind but the paper shows more than 2 data points under rinds and fills.

One other point: The vertical laminations in Roosevelt imply a possible formation by repeated episodes of deposition, each on the vertical surface of the previous layer.

Oppy's been doing some scuffing...

Click to view attachment

Probably to see how navigable that terrain beyond the visible outcrop is. The answer would appear to be 'not very'.

Doug

So I suppose this was an intentional test? I couldn't see the two front wheels spinning in the sand while the others are (presumably) on rock, unless only the front were driven.

As Doug said, this doesn't look promising for going in deeper.

Hi all. Is this a berry track? It looks like a baby of the bigger boulder tracks in Victoria.

1P256367789EFF88AFP2554R1M1
Roy

Cleaned up a bit...

Click to view attachment

Can vapor deposition or surficial rinds really provide the mechanism for the razorbacks that we have seen in both Endurance and Victoria? These fills are evident in both the cliffs and the slopes at Victoria and at Cape Verde there is very definitely a fill in a very thin, vertical fracture.

Some little pictures :


An animation between the two lightens of this area.

Shadow of Oppy's arm on a RAT hole Sol 1430 :


Welcome back Soup Dragon


The Sol 1444 scuff :


It's a pleasure to back to work on images from Mars .

Great to be back.... does anyone know where I can find good quality contour maps for Oppy's entire traverse?

The maps should include Victoria, thanks in advance.

You've got two sources - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/traverse_maps.html and http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=681

Opportunity did another drive during sol 1446.
Check the latest fhazcam images. Are we attempting another path to the Gilbert layer or are we leaving?

Another Oppy scuff...

Click to view attachment

I thought the previous 'rock hedge' shots and MI were of Gilbert.

While slowly creeping deeper and deeper into Victoria, you may not notice the gradual change in scenery. But compare the latest navcam view of Verde, from sol 1450:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...B2P1675R0M1.JPG

with the view when we were perched on the rim, ready to enter, on sol 1291:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...ISP0643R0M1.JPG

We're now over 20 metres in horizontally, and six or so metres vertically. Hard to believe we're pushing six months inside the crater now!

Could someone put a line on Verde to mark the current depth?

Thanks
Brian

If you look at the first navcam frame I posted, the current depth of the rover on Verde is very close to the point where the horizon hits Verde, ie more than halfway down. This works because the visible horizon is very close to horizontal! (Actually the level of our wheels would be a metre and a half or so lower still).

You can also make out the white layer on Verde, and we're a bit below that now.

New batch of Opportunity updates. One highlight:These images don't appear to be all down yet.

Also, the scuffing on sol 1441 was intentional:

Sorry if this has been touched on elsewhere.
Does anyone know the story behind the scuff-like mark on Oppy's solar panel (I'm presuming some interaction with the arm) and how these little 'pebbles/grains' got there (again off the arm?)
Just curious
Click to view attachment
Thanks
Astro0

I seem to remember that when the arm started to play up they experimented with different driving stowages - including resting on the deck. Could that have been the cause of the scrape? Long time ago though.

Good explanation - possibly the RAT brush contacting during MI work of the array as well, especially given the bent brush. That IDD-on-deck driving test was a LONG time ago now, and on the other side.

The clods sat on the deck are possibly blown off the IDD during the same procedure, or falling off the IDD having built up on the ledges and lenses up there, when it looks 'down'

Doug

New unexpectedly high quality ( after long, long time) images from Microscopic Imager.

1M257538389EFF88B2P2956M2M1
1M257539764EFF88B2P2956M2M1

Thanks for the heads-up.

All of the MIs are not down yet, but this was such an interesting rock that it was worth stitching the available images, even if I had to mix command sequences. I am certainly tempted to suggest we are again seeing remnant, horizontal "rinds" in association with the razorback features.

Here are the stiched MIs from sol 1457.
Click to view attachment

This set of MIs was taken at the lower left corner of this bedrock block in the Gilbert layer.
Click to view attachment

Lots of detail, thanks Oppy!

Click to view attachment

That last image is so D-A-M-N real CosmicRocker! One of the best so far on permitting us experience the martian reality...for now...

The panoramic view on Sol 1450 taken

with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

Click to view attachment

Thanks for your kind words, Rui. That was simply a crop of a false color, L257 composite which was created automatically by MMB.

I noticed a recent set of L257 pancam false color shots of Cape Verde from sol 1457 that were pleasing to the eye. Who could ever grow tired of this view of Cape Verde from Duck Bay? Here's the false color version of that recent Cape Verde pano.
Click to view attachment

Crop or not, false color or not, automatically created or not, that specific image, that may appear as nothing special at some eyes when comparing to others that, by its sheer beauty and spectacularity, caught our attention immediately, as I was saying, this image took me there, don't know why, saw myself at the end of a sol, knealing on that outcrop...

Now that Cape Verde image...pure good old swearing...

Ok, my friend. I was rather fond of the microscopic imager mosaic, but you will hear no further arguments here. Far be it from me to question the judgement of an expert.

Seeing Stu's and CosmicRocker's excellent composites of Cape Verde above - here's a desktop version with sky and clouds added for effect.
Click to view attachment
Enjoy
Astro0

That's quite nice, Astro0. That sky with its clouds is just what that pano was waiting for.

Ow, an administrator haven't removing the good post...

So, retry

Color pan toward Cape Verde on Sol 1457 :


And the Sol 1462 navcam pan :


Stitching made with Hugin, hard to begin but powerfull.


Cosmic and Astro, good work .

Try that again...

Nice view of the dunes from here, Oppy...

Click to view attachment

My goodness, Stu! It almost looks like we're all the way to the bottom of the crater!

I have to say, when I looked at that picture, what instantly came into my mind was "We is low, and we is down among 'em, Charlie!"



-the other Doug

Here is my view of the Sol 1462 Panorama.

Taken with the L0 Navcam.

Where have we seen that before?

jvandriel

Click to view attachment

An anaglpyh of Cabo Frio (Sol 1464)

Edit : added, color pan of Cabo Frio, Sol 1462

Nice moody lighting...

Click to view attachment

Here is the complete view taken on Sol 1462 and Sol 1464

with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel.

Click to view attachment

Polar pan of jvandriel's panorama with rover added.
Click to view attachment

Astro0

Ddin't know that Victoria Crater occupies almost a third of the Martian surface... - It is all a question of perspective, I guess

Everyone's favourite sharp-edged plate...

Click to view attachment

When you saw this image:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P1156L0M1.JPG
how many of you thought about this famous shot:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...52P1214L0M1.JPG

Yup, guilty.

Me too. I'm sure everyone who watches the images come down remembered it.

>how many of you thought about this famous shot:

deja vu, all over again...

--Bill