> How far are we from the fresh crater?

Less then 350m.

Colour view of the interesting surface feature imaged by Oppy...

http://twitpic.com/rg6w0

Stu, great job! That really is an interesting patch of real estate . . . and there are our Meridiani layers peeking through, as reliable as ever.

There is a red clay jogging track near where I live here in Taipei. In August when the ants are migrating, they engineer little roads across the track that look very much like the one Stu has colorized. The end product really looks uncannily similar, but of course if Opportunity were out there on my jogging track she would have seen the little critters in action, not merely their accomplishments. Are we really sure that the rover itself did not somehow leave a scuff mark?

Couple of 3D views of Oppy herself... careful, that antenna (1st pic) will have yer eye out...!

http://twitpic.com/rijcd

http://twitpic.com/rij8t

In the latest Planetary report, it's reported that the team has concluded that MI is not a meteorite:

Suggestion: Oppy drove over a slightly loose plate of rock and it tilted enough to shift the dust along its edge.

We've actually seen countless examples of things like this along the way. Nothing very special about it.

Phil

Another tidbit from the latest report:



and

It seems like a no-brainer to save the RAT for the soft clays at Endeavour. Why waste it on a hard basalt? What could we possibly learn that would be worth it?

MarkG, take a bow -- olivine!

If we knew what we were going to learn - then we wouldn't be doing ANY of this, would we?



If it's actually a piece of primordial crust, as suggest by Squyres, then studying it is important. It's quite likely that the rock out at Endeavour will be the same exceptionally soft rock we've been used to at Eagle, Endurance and Victoria - which consumes almost no RAT bit at all.

Post#733:"Phenocrysts? A healed fracture? Peridotite (or gabbro)? "

Olivine: The brushed areas of M.I. just had the "look" of coarse-grained olivine, the way the crystal surfaces look and the non-red semi-translucent look. The sharper edged grains are likely pyroxene and feldspar.

I hope more areas of the rock get brushed before (and if) a grind site is chosen. I see veins and inclusions that merit a clear look.

The coarseness of grain and high olivine content definitely imply that this rock came from significant depth -- the coarse grain size implies slow crystallization (and slow cooling) far from the surface, and the veins imply shear and rework at depth (the filled in veins are as hard as the surrounding rock -- it did not fragment along the veins).

It took a pretty good impact to excavate this rock, perhaps a 100-km or much more sized crater would be left behind. Which crater would it be? The recent-ness (relative to the Meridiani surface) of the debris of this rock and it shards might cut the potential source list down to a short list. However, it is also possible that a smaller impact "recently" excavated this rock from the rim debris of the original big crater. Even that impact had to be big enough to "gently" throw this rock's parent debris clump on a sub-orbital trajectory. By gently, I mean an non-shock acceleration, since the rock is still intact.

Well, maybe this helps folks understand why this rock is so interesting.

I'm no geologist but olivine would mean this rock was never in contact with water so i suppose that this rock should be older than meridiani.It would be interesting to note whether any olivine was detected at the bottom of deep craters in Meridiani representing an older geological layer prior to the water history in this region..assuming that this olivne rock originated from Meridiani and not from an another region.Any suggestions guys?