Phil : Payson may not be the rim but the scarp we see has not retreated or we would observe a linear fracture on the surface in the foreground seperating the downdropped planar unit from the now higher bedded unit. The fact that one unit butts against the other along the scarp suggests recent movement.

neb

Sol 745 drive direction:



Looking forward to new images today, maybe...

Last year we had a discussion on The Erebus Complex which outlined the impact, erosional and depositional history of this region. I agree with that we are looking at the erosional remnants of a crater rim and not the rim. From the annotated image in the above link, we have two or three overlapping craters in this area with overlapping effects.

My thought on Payson area is that it is an eroded version of the "scallops" or landslide scarps that we see in Victoria.

I hate to sound alarmist and suggest something like subsidence, but, as Elmer Fudd would say, "there is someting vewy, vewy scroowey" here. It might be something as simple the topography and orientation of this scarp concentrating the wind to efficiently remove sand from this spot; after all, there is an odd dune of dark sand between this spot and the larger scarp down the road.

--Bill

meanwhile a coulorized stitch of 3 pancam R2 images; very interesting formations in the left (look at this almost orthogonal cutted rock with festoons... )

This is contest NavCam (now Sol745 panorama download is complete), showing also the path from Olympia:

(this image recall me something else, do you agre? )

The tracking web tells the sol 747 drive was executed (new site id=645G) but I still can't find any pic at the exploratorium.



At the other side of mars, right?

Bingo!

What did you use to stitch these NavCam images with? I like the arc-like geometry.

--Bill

Very simple, Bill: I increased Psi angle in autostitch, up to 30deg...
Anyway, Sol747 imagery is coming and it seems there weren't stop on the outcrop: Oppy is directly going to South!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...5NP1824L0M1.JPG

Yup.
Call that a "distraction manouver": Shoot a "drive-direction" pancam mosaic looking north and then go directly south!

They sure faked us out on that one! (Drive direction was closer to east, though.) Here's a couple views:

Wow, that is the first rock I've seen that really looks like festoons to me. That is worth taking some time on.

Scott

That's what I figured, I'll play with that some.

Ha! Southward and eastward, along the trend of the scarp. Wonderful! We are going to have some fine imagery tomorrow!!

In Dilo's Sol 745 Navcam pan, I found something interesting: apparent fresh displacement in some of the bedrock. Shown in a crop of the central part of the image, the displacement fractures are aligned between arrows, like this --> <--.

BTW, I found out today that the URL //nasa.exploratorium.edu/ updates more quickly than the (older) URL //qt.exploratorium.edu/ (presented in part; note "nasa" vs "qt").

--Bill

Yeah looks interesting but it looks like they won't be stopping. I think they've already driven away from that spot.

Is it an artifact of the images or are there vertical "cat scratches" running in those mosaics?