I've been looking at this image of Oppy's immediate destination:

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/me...15/R1500822.jpg

Staring at it without my glasses, slightly off-focus (a good technique, sometimes) I see that the etched terrain starts to resemble the splash-pattern ejecta blanket structure common to a lot of Martian craters.

There is a cluster of old, degraded craters just west of Victoria, of which Albert is one of the more distinct. The etched terrain seems to be patterned like splashed, semi-fluidized ejecta from these craters, which has been heavily eroded in the same manner and by the same processes that have eroded Albert and the other similar craters in the cluster.

I'd guess the timeline on the formation of the Victoria/Albert area is:

- Shallow seas form and evaporate over a few million years, laying down layers of sandstone and evaporite rocks.

- A cratering event makes a cluster of craters, including Albert and its neighbors. The target rock was either covered with ice or water, or had significant groundwater, resulting in the characteristic Martian splash-effect ejecta pattern.

- Seas continue to flood the area periodically for another few million years, eroding Albert and its neighbors, laying new layers of sandstone and evaporite on top of and within low spots within the craters and the ejecta blanket. This process comes close to smoothing the craters and the ejecta blankets out to a smooth plain, but remnants of the ridges in the ejecta and the crater rims are preserved.

- Mars gets really cold and dry for one or two billion years, and the blueberries (plus other dark minerals) erode out of the upper layers of the evaporites that cover this area. The landscape of exposed evaporite rock is slowly covered by a dark regolith made up of eroded blueberries and sand/dust imported via dust storms.

- The area around Albert and its neighbors consists of slightly bumpier terrain than that to its north, caused by the remnant ridges of crater rims and ejecta features sticking up over the final evaporite deposition layers. Wind erosion becomes preferential around these ridges, and the preferential deposition of the darker regolith forms the "etched" look.

- After most of these surfaces had become mature and resembled what we see today, Victoria was formed. Additional wind erosion has smoothed over most of Victoria's ejecta blanket, but since the target rock had lost most to all of its volatiles content, Victoria did not leave as noticeable of a splash-pattern ejecta blanket. It simply punched through the existing layers of sandstone and evaporites. The only deposition in and around Victoria since its creation has been aeolian.

This all suggests that we'll find some significant evaporite/sandstone ridges within the etched terrain, excavated by the Albert impact event and which predate the evaporite fill layers around them. It seems to me that, since Albert and the rest of the craters in this cluster are larger than any of the other impact features Oppy has visited, the rocks excavated up to its rim would be from the deepest layers of the sandstone/evaporite beds. Even though the craters have been heavily eroded, I'd think that, of the range of rocks available to you on the surface, you'd still find the oldest rocks from the deepest layers along the crater rim and ejecta blanket ridge lines in this old, degraded crater cluster.

We could also possibly find, in wind-sheltered strips along these ridges, a surface that still closely resembles the original evaporite surface that once covered the entire area -- the *original* dried seafloor. And we'll also find more robust dune development because of the wind-relief effects from the slightly raised rocky ridges.

What do y'all think?

-the other Doug

Oh, and BTW -- when I say "significant ridges" in the etched terrain, I don't necessarily mean *tall* ridges. Just significant in extent. The exposed rock may only stick up a foot or two from the surrounding surface. Or maybe even less. But I expect to see contacts between the impact-uplifted ridges, the surrounding evaporite/sandstone fill, and the dark regolith deposition.

In other words, a geologist's paradise. I'd really like to watch Squyres as Oppy rolls on into the etched terrain... *grin*...

-the other Doug

Speaking of Squyers and Co. When is the next press conference gonna be? They have not had a single one since the jan 3. anniversary one. They must have tons of new things to talk about.

Steve talk to us

Agreed! Steve Squyres is the best thing that ever happened to the Mars exploration program, as far as NASA PR is concerned. He is so unabashedly excited and emotionally involved in this work that he transmits the tremendous excitement of exploration to the general public.

If we want more public support for Mars exploration, we could do worse than have Steve Squyres up front as its public face. A lot more often.

-the other Doug

Steve is so cool! I always admire his entusiasme.

Actually I have just ordered his book Roving Mars

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1...0826557-3527653

On the other hand: Matt Golombeck aka "the giggling geek" is a total disaster

Awe, come on man. That's not fair. Matt is an excellent scientist and an important contributor to the missions. While I can't imagine anyone doubting Steve's important contributions to the MER missions, we all don't have anchorman attributes.

I know that in the days when they had rover briefings, (Is there anyone around here old enough to remember them? (...nevermind, Don't get me started on that.)) I looked forward to Matt's updates as much as I did Steve's. I saw Matt several times in the crowd at the LPSC and wanted to talk to him about martian geology, but he was always either listening intently to a presentation, or else working on his laptop, so I was hesitant to disturb him. That was probably a mistake.

NASA has been on a roll with quite a few wildly successful missions lately. None of them would have succeeded were it not for many talented contributors.

I hope this was mend as a joke. If not: Matt Golombek is a planetary Geologists, and a damn good one ! His contributions to the research of the fundamental geologic processes on Mars are way beyond what "us" kind of guys will ever be able to do ! Besides: I think it's a great person. He's creative, modest, fun and......responsible for a huge part of the succes of MPF AND MER ! He deserves the deepest respect of us kind of guys: they give us the data we need !! Please, take people the way they are.....and forget about their appearance sometimes.

I agree Matt is an excellent scientist but the guy just seems to suffer from stage fright during press conferences. The way he acts and his nervous laugh just radiate "I don't like being in the spotlight". Although Matt has interesting stuff to tell during a press conference, I don't find it very pleasant to watch him as he obviously isn't at ease. And for the geek part, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm a geek and proud of it

Well, to be fair, I think Steve can come across as a little "over enthusiastic" to the uninitiated. His abilities as a cheerleader (I mean this in a good sense; it's a necessary evil for the Mars programs future funding) may be more media tuned than poor Matt's, who never seems as smooth on camera as The Steve. But unfortunately to most folks who only see the 15 second sound bite on the evening news, they both are just geeky scientists who get way too happy about rocks. And! Steve! Likes! Rocks!

This has nothing to do with their professional credentials, they both obviously are extremely bright and gifted project leaders. I speak only of their Celebrity Cred. And in this aspect, I do think Squyres seems to rally the troops more. But then I don't have to work directly underneath him either:

"Dude - RELAX! We'll make it to the outcrop, don't worry... !!!!"

PS - in one of those PBS Nova specials there was a great scene between Squyres and Steve Gorevan of Honeybee about using the RAT on the berries - Battle of the Steves! It was neat to see a little tension in the team - drove home the reality of the sitation you don't often get in the press room.

Steve Squyres is the man for spearheading this fantastic mission, but I read about a month ago he made some comment to the effect he thought humans would never live on Mars permanently. It was at the end of a long Space.com article and I'm too lazy to dig it up but he said the environment is just too harsh.

I disagree. There will be people who choose to go and they will ultimately build a community there.

I think you're right, people will eventually settle Mars. But they will have to get hardened to a lot of things we here on Earth would consider hardships.

One thing I keep thinking about, in terms of living on Mars (or even visiting it) is what we know of the composition of the soils. There are a lot of sulphates and salts of different kinds in the average Martian soils, plus a lot of good old fashioned rust.

I'm thinking that, once our intrepid Martian explorers come back inside their ship with their dirty boots and dirty suits, they're going to find that Mars really stinks. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that you put that much sulphur into the mix, you're going to get a broad range of objectionable odors.

Has anyone ever tried putting together a mix of elements to simulate Martian soils? If so, I'd be very interested to see what they say it smells like...

-the other Doug

I read somewhere about the Apollo missions, where the astronauts would enter back inside the lander and take off their dusty suits n boots, and said they noticed the smell of cinders or ash. I to wonder what does mars smell like?

scott

Smell is one thing, but cross-world biological contamination is a serious issue to think about. If the travelers can smell martian soil, it would also work the other way around -- with Earth microbes crossing over to the Martian environment. Whether they survive or not is questionable, but I don't think we know or can deal with the full implications if they do manage to survive.

Speaking of contamination - I've read that our lander spacecraft were sterilized to prevent this. But didn't at least one of the Surveyor landers on the Moon have some terrestrial bacteria that survived? I have to wonder what's become of the bacteria. And out of all the US and Russian lander missions to Mars, what are the chances that earth bacteria made it to Mars and is there now?

Bubbinski

Yes parts of Surveyor 3 was brought back and microbes were cultured from the camera. But the results are indispute. In fact it looks like it was a false positive.

scott

p.s. Here is a link.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-04zza.html

Unrelated question which I don't think deserves a new topic : Does anybody know what ever happpened to the "problem" with the moessbauer spectrometer that was found during cruse to Mars? I think Squyres was quoted as saying something like "well...we think we'll still be able to get usefull data from it". The media played it up like it was the end of the mission and then I never heard anything about it again! Was the problem software? Hardware, but fixed? Or maybe just ignored?

I remember reading that it "just worked" when they actually landed on Mars. Sort of like when the IT guy comes round, and you can't reproduce the problem that you've been having with your computer all day. I think Squyres decided that it was because the Mössbauer was never designed to "work in a vacuum", but perhaps they'll never know.

The belief was that there was a loose piece of wire or something that was in the mechanism (I don't really understand how the instrument works). I probably got jarred loose durning launch and then fell out later durning landing. There was a wire tie floating are on the deck of one of the rovers. I think it was Spirit. That's the explaination I remember.

"One thing I keep thinking about, in terms of living on Mars (or even visiting it) is what we know of the composition of the soils. There are a lot of sulphates and salts of different kinds in the average Martian soils, plus a lot of good old fashioned rust.

I'm thinking that, once our intrepid Martian explorers come back inside their ship with their dirty boots and dirty suits, they're going to find that Mars really stinks. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that you put that much sulphur into the mix, you're going to get a broad range of objectionable odors.

Has anyone ever tried putting together a mix of elements to simulate Martian soils? If so, I'd be very interested to see what they say it smells like..."

-the other Doug

Its even possible the dust could be toxic:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22apr_dontinhale.htm