Bob,
I hope you're right, I'd love things to be more dynamic. The more that's going on, the more there is to see. Although what we've seen already is impressive to say the least.

Stephen

Here is an interesting rind which appears to be displaced from the parent rock. I disremember which Sol it is from, but it's from the "recent" Oppy Pancams at the entrance to the Erebus Highway.

The "Bugs and Buds" faction is going to have fun with this feature...

--Bill

Afraid they will.
Wonder what they make out of it, one Martian hedgehog?

No, a hedgehog would be too sane and rational.

I wish that we had a close look at it; unfortunately, in the Sea of Dunes Oppy has to stay on the chosen path. I suspect that it is a weathering crust that was displaced by the wind.

I've developed a LOT of respect for the winds of Mars...

--Bill

I see what you mean. At first it almost resembled a fossil skull, so I guess it could be a rind from which the softer core had been eroded away. But then I started looking at it closer, and now I'm not so sure. There were L1 and R2 images, so I made an anaglyph and increased the image size 250%. In magnified 3D, it appears to be a boulder that has broken into 3 pieces. The various parts in sunlight and shadow may be creating the illusion of one object that is hollow. Along side the anaglyph, I have included a magnified crop from the R1 image.

I noticed another anomalous feature from the Sol 574 pancams. There is a fairly steep, elevated segment of blueberries. If this is a windblown ripple it sure is a strange one. It seems to be too rounded in vertical profile. I'm attaching an anaglyph and a cropped false color composit from MMB. The anaglyph is particularly intriguing, since the sides of this thing appear to be almost vertical.

I wonder if this could be caused by one of those vertically extending pieces of rind we have seen along some of the rock edges, but in this case perhaps the blueberries have been cemented onto it. I'm not very satisfied with that hypothesis, since I haven't seen any prior examples of berries being cemented after being eroded from the parent rock. Anyone have a better explanation?

Blush, you're correct-- this is an optical illlusion. Putting an L1-R2 pair up and looking at them cross-eyed it clearly is a cobble with an odd light-shadow pattern.

Oh well...

I noticed that Sol574 anomaly and don't know what to make of it. We'll take your explanation for the time being...

--Bill

It is true! The wind makes many surprises to the humanity. The wind changes the landscape and makes us crazy to figure out what has it was alike before. So we know what the Mar's wind can take, not only dust and also very fine powder and able to roll a spheric or cylindric alikes sand ball up to a determineted size according to the surface friction and slope along with the wind density and strength.

Below the Mediterranean Terra is covered of outcrop and most of these is covered by the sand. At the bottom of the sea, neigher a lake there is outcrop or not? When the water ran out, at the beginning, the bottom is covered by outcrop with lots of fissures. With the time, the wind started to cover them with ash, sand, powder and blueberries?

Rodolfo

Here is a Rear Hazcam of the Sol574 "wrinkled rug" anomaly. My speculation is that this is an early stage of the blueberry sand blowing off of bedrock.

It's still puzzling, but there are more mysteries ahead...

--Bill

Thanks, Bill. I missed the hazcam images. It doesn't look so anomalous from that hazcam viewpoint. I also noted one or two similar features in the sol 576 images. I'm becoming convinced it is just a wind-blown ripple that is related to the edge of that rock. I may have been misled by vertical exaggeration in the pancam anaglyphs.

Now that looks odd
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...EKP1214R0M1.JPG

Alan:

Nope. Not odd. VERY odd!

What on Earth (haha) are we seeing around the (forgive me) pterosaur skull?

And has Oppy been gouging out holes in the pavement?

Bob Shaw

Shadow, mostly. But the stone seems to have been dislodged; as if a hand had pulled it out of a hole in the ground, and then placed it back in, but without sweeping the sand back into the crevices. Did Oppy run over it? And the diamond-shaped marks on the rocks, and the circles -- I hope that's something Oppy did. Otherwise I'll find myself lying awake at night wondering if somebody else has been there before.

I saw that and said "Hmmmm... odd". And decided that Oppy nudged it with a wheel. There are those unusual marks on the flat rock next to it that might (or might not ) be from the wheel. Hopefully, Oppy was lining up to look closer.

This rear Hazcam was made 52 seconds later:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...EKP1315L0M1.JPG

I decided to keep my mouth shut after my discovery of the Hedgehog skull earlier this week...

--Bill

I think you're right, she drove over a rock and pushed it to the side a little. The bright "scratches" on the rocks appear pretty closely associated with the wheel marks on the left side of the image (same spacing, at least initially).

That rock must be fairly soft if the wheels are making marks on it. Or is that just the rind ?

Stephen