Geomorphology of Gale Crater, Rock on! |
Geomorphology of Gale Crater, Rock on! |
Sep 26 2012, 10:22 PM
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#201
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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 28 2016, 09:47 PM
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#202
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1045 Joined: 17-February 09 Member No.: 4605 |
After the exhaustive work to identify the provenance of Opportunity's berries there is a tendency to consider small spherical objects seen on Mars as concretions. This particular example is isolated so if it is a concretion then transport was involved. However we cannot rule out other causes such as an impact artefact, molten material with a reasonably high ferric component that assumed a spherical shape and cooled in flight, possibly quenched by fall into water. Note Greg Malone's post #810, page 54 on 22 December.
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Guest_Steve5304_* |
Dec 29 2016, 12:27 AM
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#203
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Guests |
After the exhaustive work to identify the provenance of Opportunity's berries there is a tendency to consider small spherical objects seen on Mars as concretions. This particular example is isolated so if it is a concretion then transport was involved. However we cannot rule out other causes such as an impact artefact, molten material with a reasonably high ferric component that assumed a spherical shape and cooled in flight, possibly quenched by fall into water. Note Greg Malone's post #810, page 54 on 22 December. If that was formed by water it would not be on the surface..it would be below I would think. That had to have broken off or out in the last 100,000 years. Again...I would think but |
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Dec 29 2016, 12:55 AM
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#204
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Member Group: Members Posts: 684 Joined: 24-July 15 Member No.: 7619 |
If that was formed by water it would not be on the surface..it would be below I would think. That had to have broken off or out in the last 100,000 years. Again...I would think but Eh, remember that there would be a cycle that repeats thousands or millions of times: dry lake bed, playa, shallow lake, deep lake, shallow lake, playa - dry lake The dry to wet cycle is nicknamed a van-houten cycle, in the best studied mudstone basins on earth, one cycle is ~20k years, and about 1 meter thick. Expect you'd have something similar on mars - gale probably went from lake to dry lake and back many times, based on orbit and eccentricity. there could be "wet" areas both above and below [what appear to be] the current mud flats. Yes, there is a tendency to consider small spherical things on mars as concretions, however, we're looking at fractured mudstones, and experience on earth shows that fluids moving through cracked mudstones are good at making concretions. They're common in earth mudstones, so it's acceptable to expect they're common on mars as well... |
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