Geomorphology of Cape York and Solander Point, Examining Opportunity's destination at Endeavour Crater Options

[Stu]

Everyone, say hello to Cape York... in colour...



Larger version on my blog: http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2010/...-york-in-colour

[ngunn]

Back to something I mentioned before but, since at last we have a special thread and more people contributing, here it is once more. It's about the beach/not-beach issue. One sure way to demolish the beach idea is to show that any hypothetical Endeavour lake would have had an outflow at a lower level than this terrace. If on the other hand the outflow point is found to be very close to the level of the terrace this could be seen as a 'fulfilled prediction' of the beach hypothesis. Lakes that drain can have levels that are stable for long periods, whereas lakes that don't tend to fluctuate or steadily decrease in level, militating against significant beach formation like Phil said.

I'm surprised that no-one here has seriously grappled with the relative elevations. I've made my own clumsy attempt and I think the elevations are fairly close - but that's really not good enough.

[algorimancer]

...I'm surprised that no-one here has seriously grappled with the relative elevations....

It seems like Google Mars with the MOLA elevation database and overlaid high resolution imagery ought to get close to an answer. It's too bad it doesn't have the explicit capability of adding a water layer at a particular elevation, though this might be improvised (I'm afraid I just don't have the time lately, else I'd try it). One issue with applying this to ancient times may be that previously saturated subsurface/sediments may have subsequently lost water to sublimation and consequently altered the topography.