Geomorphology of Gale Crater, Rock on! |
Geomorphology of Gale Crater, Rock on! |
Sep 26 2012, 10:22 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
I'd like a discussion thread about the geology detatched from the time limits of current MSL threads. We had a 'Geomorphology of Cape York' thread that attracted a lot of interesting posts. How about 'Geomorphology of Gale Crater'? I have one or two ideas but many more questions, and I'd like to post them in a longer-running thread away from the day to day imaging discussion. Any other takers?
For starters, does anybody have a contour map of this place like the one at Meridiani with 5m intervals? ADMIN: You have your wishes fulfilled on UMSF (sometimes) |
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Dec 2 2012, 12:27 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1045 Joined: 17-February 09 Member No.: 4605 |
nprev. I'm with you in that Mount Sharp probably has a central uplift core, but the bulk of the mountain is sedimentary. Have a look at a couple of the complex Lunar craters such as Maunder to get an idea of the relative size of a pretty much pristine central uplift.
The puzzle (and I deliberately avoid the word mystery) is why the sediment ended up as a central mound. I have difficulty accepting the explanation that the crater was overfilled to the height of (or greater than) Mt Sharp and then excavated, despite the credentials and credibility of the proposers. That hypothesis requires that the sediment that must have covered the rest of the crater and the surrounding area was totally removed while that on Mount Sharp was significantly more resistant. I'm backing a shallow crater lake for the phyllosilicates and a vortexing effect for the remainder. I don't have the smarts to model something so complex so take the last as being accompanied by wild guestures from the depths of an armchair. |
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