Oh. So gravity afterward is going to move them horizontally a whole meter when they topple. I don't think so. This sounds a whole lot like the pedestal theory when there clearly was not one at BI. If such toppling over billions of years was so significant, why aren't there any pedestals underneath any of the pieces of meteorites?

How can you say I forgot the movement of the sand grains and blueberries when I referred to the movement in my post?

Well, I can't write about faeries riding on the backs of unicorns, bunnies hopping through enchanted forests, glorious sunrises, twin Barsoomian moonsets and marmalade skies all the time, even I need a change now and again :-)

No, seriously tho, that word just came to me when I realised how eaten away the meteorite appears, as if it's been devoured from inside. Seemed appropriate and accurate. That meteorite does look very, very ill to me. But hey, it's just some scribblings after all.

Some seem to be forgetting that a meteorite the size of Mackinac should have left a sizable dent on the plain when it hit. So it probably did not land on the current surface. And all of these various meteorites are on the surface of the, except SI which was partially buried in a dune.

It still was on top of the hard surface below (my assumption but a good guess). The loose material starting to bury SI suggests predominant deposition rather than excavation. And remember there are no pedestals to indicate excavation.

Does anyone know have many vertical meters have been deflated at Meridiani?

I went and actually measured the size of the piece in question. It's just under 4 cm across (about 1.5 inches).

I don't see a problem with such a piece being moved by wind/saltation over geological timescales. To move a metre in a billion years means moving on average a nanometre a year. That's a millionth of a millimetre a year, or something like 1/100 000 times a human hair width per year. Isn't wind/saltation supposed to have an important impact on rocks on Mars generally, moving them around over geological times?

But I'm sure there are many other possibilities as well. Shouldn't any fragments broken off on impact fall in a range of distances from the main piece (Mackinac), including some very close? Maybe some earlier surface that the meteorites sat on was more steeply sloped, so gravity could assist in moving small pieces around?

Looks greenish in that picture... I suppose that's just contrast with the red soil?

The dunes of Meridiani come and go, don't they? Over time, I mean. That being the case, perhaps a dune rose beneath Mackinac at some point, and as the dune then eroded away there was a separation of some fragments from the meteorite, that fell away from the main body. Now Mackinac is on flat ground there's a gap between it and the fragments.

Important to remember how sloooooowly things move on Mars, and over how long a time they do that moving. It's easy to think in human terms when considering time. We really can't imagine something happening "over billions of years".

New images are in...where are we?
Halfway between Oppy's previous position and the small crater due south or did she keep on roving SW?
Tesheiner?...

Quakes from nearby impacts.

I'm pretty sure I've found us. Extrapolate from 2038 to 2040, continuing in the same direction and same distance, to the 2041 location:

We've got some pretty sizable dunes close to our south now. I would guess that the next drive would be to the WSW to get onto the bedrock again and then thread between more large dunes ahead.

Of course this position isn't official until we hear from The Master!

Right on the money! We're just north of a pair of purgatoids.
I think that the SW heading leg will end in a sol or two and then we'll basically head south following the outcrop patches.

Thanks fredk!
And finally! Finally Oppy reaches the paralel of the halfway beacon on my 2nd leg of the quest for Endeavour!
The delay has grown quite considerably, from 119 days in the previous mark to 227 currently what makes my prediction of arrival at Endeavour pass from February, 8 2010 to September, 23 2010...
Let's see some nice drives to catch up with the craziness!

Less than a year from now will not be too bad after all

Here's a navcam mosaic made from today's post-drive images.

Nothing really special and the landscape is quite boring actually BUT to the right we start to identify the patches which will be the "yellow bricks" for the next couple of Kms. It's time to drive south again!

I think I see another meteorite