Oh my, wherever Marquette came from, I'm really loving the scenery:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...PDP2582L7M1.JPG

Well, well, well...That is indeed an interesting member of the archipelago, isn't it? Definitely got some layers, but doesn't look much to me like anything else we've seen around here.

Looking forward to the MIs.

Assuming that the picture which Fredk has just posted is of the half of Marquette opposite the smoothly fractured side -- and taking a clue from Stu's invocation of "Wopmay" -- I would like to advance a theory, namely, that both Wopmay and the boulder of which Marquette is a piece started off life as big, normal-looking, relatively smooth-skinned rocks (themselves ejecta, or large fragments of collapsed crater wall); but that after perhaps billions of years of the peculiar kind of delicate sandblasting that occurs on the surface of Mars, they gained the rough, almost frothy surface which characterizes Wopmay, and which characterizes as well the parent of Marquette -- wherever it is; and that, further, Marquette was fairly recently broken off from the parent and left at its present position, where we can fortuitously see, on the broken face, what the "original" surface of the rock looked like.

All this by way of explanation of what has long been a mystery to me -- the almost hideous appearance of Wopmay.

And I am also guided in this theorizing by the sandblasting which surf shops sometimes do on driftwood to further enhance -- sometimes to a bizarre degree -- the grain of the wood.

Quick and dirty L2-R2 anaglyph of Marquette:

Very nice in colour now...

What a story it could tell.

We'll be there for quite some sols.
I guess we can still brush but can we still RAT?
The rock on the left side at the foot of Marquette that seams like starting to be cut in half would be of interest too for MI.

Here are my takes on Maquette Island :



Surprizingly interesting the dychotomy between the "eastside" and the "westside". Very probably, this rock is coming from Fresh Crater, with a part freshly exposed to the atmosphere, and a part exposed since a longer time. I think…
So, pretty interesting rock at all .

This is fascinating but I am still immensely enjoying the journey itself so here is a rough stitch of Sol 2058 Navcams (Sun 8th Nov). Love the tracks - so will work this up into a colourized panorama over the next couple of weeks as I get time between bush trips and journeys to Darwin.



But not so good to have heard that the front wheel current is elevated again. Although is great to have updates, it is frustrating not to know exactly how high the elevation is. Anyone got any more info on this?

Pretty, pretty rock...

Looks, to my untrained eye, like a shatter cone

Looks like it took one hard bounce on what is now the top. The top edge looks crunched and part of the upper surface looks abraded.

Either that or something hit it after it landed, knocking pieces off... lots of debris around it... http://twitpic.com/ovie8/full

Close-up of the big beastie here... http://twitpic.com/oveyt

Nice mosaic Stu, BUT, you still have a very pronounced vigneting

The surroundings of the same mosaic :

"BUT"?!?!?

Ant, the vignetting is deliberate... I just like the artistic look of it. I thought everyone here knew by now that I make unashamedly pretty chocolate box pics, and leave the scientifically accurate reference book pics to others.