Some movement on sol 3153 to Copper Cliff:
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Also visible in the Matijevic Pan.

Finished watching the two videos posted above - very interesting stuff - Thanks stewjack for posting the links!

Ronald, really nice presentation thank you. The choice of 3-d methods is very much appreciated.

Thanks

A quick one for sol 3155:
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Use this thread for all images, discussions, etc. post sol 3153.

Really looking forward to Oppy getting stuck into the rocks here...

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RE: the "NewBerries" discovered at this zone of the column:





From my review of the literature and observations of the stratigraphy at the site, I am inclined to regard the "spherules of unknown affinity" simply as impact spherules.

--Bill

"Simply as impact spherules" may not be as simple as it sounds. Impacts can form spherule-like objects by multiple processes, including, e.g., condensation of silicate vapor to a glass, which you cited, condensation of sticky steam to mineral grains forming accretionary lapilli (e.g., the larger spherules stratigraphically associated with the Chicxulub Crater assumed to have killed the dinosaurs), hollow vesicles in impact glass later filled with minerals, or spherulites associated with devitrification (rapid partial crystallization) of impact glass (which spherulites characteristically have a radiating internal structure also noted at high magnification in some of the "newberries"). Multiple types of impact spherules might be expected to be preserved on Mars, much more commonly than on Earth, whose early impact record has been completely erased or is incomplete (biased by differential settling through sea water and heavily altered by aqueous processes).
-dburt

Fancy Vermilion - Sol 3156:
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Big version here.

The interesting aspect on the provenance of these new-berries is their position towards the bottom of the original crater rim. This seems a most unlikely position for deposition of lapilli or condensation spherules originating with the Endeavour impactor and provides an indication that this is part of the pre-impact surface / sub surface.

Opportunity MI mosaic...

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Some more Copper Cliff from sol 3156:
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Could be a part of the Matijevic Hill Memory Game
Big version here.

Very pretty. Do any of the resident geologists have an idea of what kinds of processes could have produced those fine veins in this rock?

Steve M

Fracturing followed by fluids depositing the white mineral in the fractures. Brecciation is common with impact. We saw similar fine veins near the south end of Cape York. Here's a link to a picture of a terrestrial breccia; different scale, fracturing mechanism, and fracture fill, but the filled fracture idea is the same:

http://www.nr.gov.nl.ca/nr/mines/outreach/.../breccia1lg.jpg

Does Vermilion look like a contact point between rock types that Steve Squyres alluded too in his recent AGU talk?

Me too, although interpretation will be a nightmare. For instance the Copper Cliff MI pan shows glass, spherules, angular and rounded clasts, tiny veins and possibly a clast within a clast. While this is a polymictic impact product we cannot assume that the glass and spherules are cogenetic. Cape York is probably giving us an insight into the multiple impact products of the Hadean but our understanding will be through a glass darkly.

In this version of MI 3158 I rotated the mosaic 180 degrees just for familiar shadow angle.
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Looks like there is a bit of everything mixed up in that rock

The forgotten rover is still keeping busy. From JPL

Shoulder Work At 'Copper Cliff'
Opportunity Status for sol 3159-3165
Release Date: 12/19/12

Opportunity is working at "Matijevic Hill" (named in honor of Jake Matijevic) at the inboard edge of "Cape York" on the rim of Endeavour Crater. There, the rover has been conducting in-situ (contact) science measurements at a location called "Copper Cliff."

On Sol 3160 (Dec. 13, 2012), Opportunity began taking images with its Microscopic Imager (MI) for a mosaic of a surface target. Partway through the activity, the rover's robotic arm experienced a stall in the shoulder azimuth joint. This has been seen a few times before when the arm is commanded to move at a slow rate, but not the slowest rate. Magnetic detents normally hold the motor armature when unpowered, and under certain slow-rate conditions they are able to restrain the armature from spinning. At higher rates, the armature has enough momentum to keep spinning, while at the slowest rates a higher stall threshold is used. Activities on Sol 3162 (Dec. 15, 2012) confirmed the joint is OK, and an offset placement of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) was completed.

On Sol 3165 (Dec. 18, 2012), Opportunity bumped about 18 feet (5.5 meters) to the west to reach a new set of surface targets in this Copper Cliff area. The rover will likely continue in-situ investigations in the area through the coming holiday.

As of Sol 3165, the solar array energy production was 533 watt-hours with an increased atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.955 and a solar array dust factor of 0.607.

Total odometry is 22.02 miles (35438.37 meters)

Image of Copper Cliff area

Naaaaa

Vermilion again - sol 3165:
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I wasn't going to add this here, because I made this for my Facebook Banner, but I'll post it anyway's.

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Some changes visible between sols 3168 and 3177, probably due to dust blown by wind:
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They're not due to lighting differences, since the local times of the two frames differ by only a few minutes. Gusts are always welcome...

Good find, and yes Gusts of wind are very much welcome for Opportunity.

Sure enough, we did have a cleaning event, on sol 3175, according to the latest update.

And we are back at Whitewater Lake:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3182
You can see the grind mark (circled):
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Hey, you're right! I was wondering where those tracks came from.


MERBSol3182BackAtWhitewaterLake, on Flickr

The Planetary Society report:

http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-top...ck-on-2012.html

A.J.S. Rayl just plain does it right.

And a big shout-out to our own Stu & Tesheiner for their featured contributions to this excellent article!

That's a particularly blockbuster report. Really striking for the collaboration between MER and MRO to reach any conclusions. Makes me wonder: if Opportunity were parked over, say, Whitewater Lake, would that be detectable to CRISM?

Opportunity did a small bump to the right on sol 3185, and Whitewater Lake is now dead center ahead of the IDD workvolume.
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With what is going on with Curiousity, I sometimes forget the amazing landscape that Opportunity is roving in.

Go Opportunity!!

Was poking around and just now noticed this: dust devil on sol 3182. (Center frame; vertical line is south).

Well spotted.

Yeah, nice catch! That's only DD#2 for Oppy, IIRC.

Here's a stacked average of the L and R frames:
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If anyone's skeptical, it appears in exactly the same spot in the L and R frames, but is completely absent from the neighbouring frames, taken less than a minute earlier:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...__P0675R0M1.JPG

hmmm, yeah and If I Searched Correctly, there was only DD#1 in an old FredK post and gif animation from way back in 2010 SOL 2301 ...
also in the center left of ant103's pano

Good point, Fred - right in the overlap area. Here's two frames if anyone wants to make a flicker animation - seems to be beyond my technical ability at the moment. (Disclaimer: contains my own inexact de-vignetting and brightness adjustment.)

Great observation!

Phil

Here you go:
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And here's the difference, with DD minus without DD:
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Heavy jpeg artifacts at this zoom and stretch, but in all cases I've averaged the L and R frames to boost S/N by sqrt(2).

so are entering into dust devil season?
if the last sighting was SOL 2301 and now its SOL 3182 it looks like were at least a season ahead of the last cycle sighting, any seasonal pattern to this? lets see..
Last DD was seen about the middle between Mars summer solstice and autumnal equinox..
This one has Mars' winter solstice is coming up this Feb 23 2013.
if these two are just outliers i guess we have'nt been paying attention..

I'm not surprised we're seeing a DD here. The relative lack of them at Meridiani is, I think, due to the lack of pronounced hills and slopes in the area. DDs seem to spawn off of hills and out of very large craters. We have the kinds of slopes required to generate them at our current location, but haven't seen much in the way of hills up until now.

-the other Doug

That dust devil was a treat!

Haven't done one of these for awhile, did my best taking out the headaches. Micro from Sol 3192:

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Beautiful! I love those micro-buttes.

Yes, they're beauts.

Phil

MOD NOTE: In an unprecedented admin/mod team action, Phil will presently be executed for this...

Groannnnnnnnnnnnnn.....

-the other Doug

How Dajare You...

More wind action at Endeavour - what looks like a gust well inside the crater on sol 3194, arrowed:
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More changes are visible in the foreground, and very easy to see when you take the difference between the two frames:
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The two frames are only a few minutes apart in local time, so the lighting is almost identical. The gust is not visible in the frames taken just after the 3194 frames:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3194

This has got to be a record - pics from sol 882 down today, that's 6 1/2 years ago!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...2M2.JPG?sol----
That was by Beagle Crater, which a few of the oldtimers may recall was just before Victoria...

Edit - that frame was already in the PDS (but not the jpl jpeg site), so it must just be some pipeline thing. Still funny to see...

Yeah, a blast from the past. Those images were trickling in so slowly today, it certainly seemed as if they were coming through the normal pipeline.

Robot dreams maybe?

It's a Version 2 of the image, so maybe a backed up downlink or ground processing thing.

A micro from Sol 3194:

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