I'm getting dizzy! Hope we don't fall in...

Very nice pic, Stu.

Phil Stooke

Love that VE'd pic!

Good thing you're keeping up on the blogging. Things have been crazier than hell at JPL.

I've got a few posts in the queue! I promise!

-m

Opportunity has been imaged on Cape York by MRO.
image.

Mossbauer is down on the re-brushed Salisbruy-1 target and integrating away as we speak...*

Yay!

We plan to sit here for at least the remainder of the week, with MB measurements in the planning loop to determine when we like what we see. Some more magic from the team will be streaming out in the next 2 weeks as we hit the Nominal (planning 5 days/week) planning cycle!

-m


*EDIT: Well, in about half an hour... :

Have you got confirmation of this Matt? 2728 looks like another runout from the tracking data.

Stitched/sharpened/sprinkled with magic dust view of the Salisbury hole...

Click to view attachment

Wonderful post-brush MIs from Sol-2728-- they provide more tantalizing insights into character and properties of the rock and cuttings at Salisbury.

--Bill

Dunes on the floor of Endeavour...

Click to view attachment

Sounds like the title of a Moody Blues album.

The missing piece came down, so as promised I've had another go at this...



James

An evocative masterpiece, congrats...

Haha... I spoke too soon. There was a hiccup at the DSN literally 10 minutes after I posted! 2728 never made it up.

-m

Heh, so the best laid plans of RATs and MERs...


Worked up an IDD location montage for Salisbury this morning. Interesting to see from the Pancams what Oppy's been grinding upon.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/wil...ury_IDD_loc.jpg

--Bill

...gang after clay.

Oh, that's very good!

Phil


(to clarify, I mean both of the above two posts)

Possibly the best double act comment pair on the site, ever...

Call it the Burns formation.

"Say goodnight, Gracie..."


Supposedly Oppy will be doing a MB integration at Salibury for a few days, but in the pipeline are images of the Next Drive Direction (P2397) and a super-res image set at Sutherland Point (presumably the post-C.York target).

--Bill

Yeah, there's a veritable fork in the road today and Monday. They are possibly going to simply "rinse and repeat" the last few sols' plans of MB integrations, since we get two "free" sols of it when we make the weekend plans on Fridays. There seems to be agreement that we shouldn't drive away just yet. Monday is likely going to be a "clean up and drive off" day.

-m

Agreed, the in-place bedrock nearby appears to be similar to Salisbury so Oppy's done all that can be done at this location. They might want to zap the RAT hole with the MB for a longer integration time, but that's all. They need to work their way up-hill to the next outcrop on the way to the CRISM clays near the "summit crater". Geologically there was so much happening here that moving a short distance up in the section will put us in a whole 'nuther sequence of events.

--Bill

The L2 Pancam view on Sol 2732.

Jan van Driel

Click to view attachment

Some really facinating topography here
Click to view attachment

I see you added some shear to the images to "flatten out" the anaglyph, James. Did you do that by hand, or using some automated routine?

That's quite the anaglyph! I wouldn't want to try driving over it if that was the real topography...

Phil

Colourised sol 2732 panorama...

Click to view attachment

Full size version on my RtE blog later.

It's important to differentiate between color and colorized. That mosaic, Stu - is color. Taking a Navcam pan and tinting it orange would be colorized.

One creates something with more information than the component parts alone, the other, technically, reduces it. Yours - importantly - is the former.

You're right, my mistake. Long, not particularly clean day at work, knackered, meant to say colour.

Fascinating place, Cape York, isn't it? And we were worried it would be a flat, featureless "Nothing to see here, move along" kind of place. Looking forward to looking back down on it from halfway up Tribulation one day...

Edit: 3D crop view...

Click to view attachment

I used the warp transform in Photoshop to manually align the red channel (left eye) with features in right eye.

Ah - that is why the result has some dramatic wavy distortions in it.

Phil

Here are some images I've worked up whilst musing the delivery of a set of "Next Drive Direction" Pancams last week.

First off is a recent HiRISE image of Cape York showing Oppy at the Chester Lake outcrop. Annotated, it shows Oppy as R, possible site "Skead Kirkland Lake" as 1, possible site "BostonCreek LarderLake" as 2 and an unidentified rock pile seen on the horizon of the drive direction panorama as 3. The dashed yellow line is simply the observed "trend" in the outcrops seen in the aerials-- the strata on the rim of crater Endeavour are tilted or uplifted and dip towards the northwest. Features aligned along this trend direction are likely of a similar age and, although there may be differences in the rocks, they are linked by time of formation. Strata downhill will be older and strata uphill will be younger in age. As a general rule, more-or-less.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/wil...-2730-annot.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/wil...97L2M1-pano.jpg

The outcrop Skead Kirkland Lake is one we've drooled at before and is an interesting-looking exposure. Why is there an unusual purplish iridescent sheen to the rock? I'll guess it's a weathering phenomenon, which is the important step in turning silicate rocks into clays. Wouldn't hurt to have a closer look-- not necessarily a full IDD session, but a series of close-in Pancams would be peachy.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/wil...19P2398L2M1.jpg

Next would be the outcrop BostonCreek LarderLake **. Along the trend-timeline as Skead, but why is it different? Look at the number of beds seen in this outcrop. Whereas most of the rocks seen here have been a massive impact breccia (apparently), this unit is more finely bedded, which implies different depositional processes were at work here. And just over the hill is the "summit crater" with the CRISM clays scattered about, so "Boston" is a important puzzle piece. I tried to merge the color information with the grayscale detail, but couldn't get it to work out, so here are two similar but different views.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/wil...P2540L2M1-1.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r91/wil...1--crop-enh.jpg

--Bill



** "BostonCreek LarderLake" has been named Shoemaker Ridge (after Gene Shoemaker, a planetary geologist).

Can't wait to get over that rise.

Pancam L2R2 anaglyph

Pancam L2 360x32 degree panorama, sols 2715-2732

Short Question regarding Coloring of Photos.

Is there any site out there that shows how Nasa or JPL converts the Black and White images into true Color Images?

Thanks.

From the Cornell Pancam team with multiple references:
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins...projects_1.html

That's as close to " how Nasa or JPL converts the Black and White images into true Color Images" as you will find.

This is more of a laypersons discussion of it:
http://www.highmars.org/niac/education/mer/

From the latest PS update, some news about Chester Lake:

And discussion about the coming winter:

Well : let's have a nice look at Cape Tribulation : here is a quick merge between super hi-res

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins...superres_4x.tif

image and color image from Sol 2721... Some more geological delights to come... Yum ! Yum !
Click to view attachment

Question about an image posted in the 30 Sept MER Update from the Planetary Society: what is the feature running from top left to bottom right? If it's not the rim of Endeavour, is it another crater rim, or some kind of lava flow? A shoreline from the watery past?

Apologies in advance if this has been discussed; searching continues to baffle!

And as an accompaniment with the above image, a slightly enlarged (120%) and sharpened anaglyph of the southern half of Cape York, all the way to the phyllosilicate crater - complete with Oppy! (Hopefully answering brellis's question too. )

Sifting through the wonderful PS update, it seems to be the SW edge of Cape York. Correct?

edit: thanks wiggle!

Another question: is the bright feature in the distance in this pic the eastern edge of Cape York? Why is it bright? Okay, that was two questions!

edit: I referred to it as the Ventura Freeway in the context of a crater the size of the San Fernando Valley, CA. A bright feature running through the middle-right of the pic

ADMIN EDIT : Removed embedding of image - it was 4500 pixels across.

Use a link and/or thumbnail
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/O...2681-pancam.jpg

It's a terrace or bench around CY and other rim remnants that seems to delineate the change between the hematite concretion bearing sulphate sediments and the old rim material. We crossed the bench with some haste and currently can only hypothesise from our armchairs over the underlying cause.

The "Ventura Freeway" from your link appears to be a stretch of bright dunes skirting Endeavour's enormous mound.
Google Mars suggests these dunes are some 3km in the distance...

That's Sherman Way, Brad. The Ventura Freeway is barely visible in the lower right corner.

Thanks, Dan. I always get lost in the SF valley, lol

Moved a few posts to start the new thread "Cape York - Shoemaker Ridge".
As usual, posts related to the upcoming destination Shoemaker Ridge, there. Posts related to Chester Lake, still here.

Technically, we are still in the "Lakelands" area when we get to the next stop "Skead Kirkland Lake ". From a lithologic and staratigraphic standpoint "Skead" and "Chester" are quite similar, whereas "BostonCreek LarderLake" (now known as "Shoemaker Ridge") is indeed quite different than anything we've seen.

No big deal, just noting a technicality...

--Bill

The PS update noted that Steve Squyres mentioned that Chester Lake “"has sort of a basaltic composition. It does not have a zinc enrichment like we saw at [Tisdale 2]."
”
The published APXS comparative graph for Tisdale 2 showed elevated Zn and Br but did not address Cu. I think that enhanced Br is consistent with basaltic glass but If Cu was also elevated it would possibly indicate past, hot hydrothermal activity. If not then possibly a cold seep or basaltic weathering (plagioclase?). Does anyone have any idea of the Cu level?

I've not seen any of the details of the chemistry, but this will likely be a hot topic at the next LPSC.

The top of Tisdale which was APXS'd is either a weathered zone and/or has a inherent different chemistry or is a bedding plane/fracture which has a zone of Zn-rich material deposited in it (cold-water hydrothermal). That "weathered" unit has a distinctive light-ochre color is evident in other exposures along Shoemaker Ridge and should be examined further on the traverse to the "summit crater". I intuitively think of this yellowish colour as generally "limonitic", which could include almost anything, actually.

Remember, the original, deep crust here is from not only a warmer and wetter Mars, but a Mars with a hotter amd more mobile/active crust/mantle. The mantle of that era had more hotspots and plumes and there was extensive tectonic activity. Meridiani Planum is on the edge of the Tharsis uplift, a major feature by any measure.

This primeval crust (Ur-crust) has since been pounded, mixed and blended into an impact breccia by countless impacts, and it has, among other things, has a much higher surface:volume ratio than rock and can be much more reactive to chemical weathering, weathering in the presence of water.

In a way, this is a glimpse at what the Earth may have been like in Hadean times, with tectonic cycles starting and bio-processes just beginning.

Exciting times, then and now.

--Bill





corrected (strikethrough)

Meridiani on the edge of the Tharsis uplift? That's a bit of a stretch!

Phil

best Mars uplift pun ever...

Oops, you're correct-- I was thinking of something else.

--Bill