Mogollon Rim Options

[Bill Harris]

Here is the closest tricolor sequence so far, an L257 Pancam of the dark outcrop at Mogollon Rim from Sol 657. This image is exaggerated 5x to show surface relief details. If the image is resized H=100% and V=20% the vertical exaggeration can be removed to give the natural appearance.

Interesting outcrop.

--Bill

[CosmicRocker]

...but I've been drooling (no, _lusting_) over this outcrop for a year now.    It is bound to be an important piece of the Meridiani Layer Cake an is an important stop on the way to Victoria.
...

--Bill

It sure is, and I can't wait to get up close and personal with it. There is definitely something different about that lower layer.

...
In the current Pancam images there a lot of interesting views of the adjacent bedrock.  I've barely looked at them.
--Bill

The nearby rocks are really intriguing, especially in false color. Parks (aka, Turkey) appears exceptionally dark in all the filters. That's not true of all the cobbles and pebbles lying about. The bedrock in this area has really captured my attention. I've found quite a few interesting features, several of which are apparent in one particular Pancam composite taken on Sol 657, which I have annotated and attached.

I have more questions than answers. Recently the bedrock has displayed contrasting color variations across short distances. In the false color images the rock color jumps from the typical cream colors to blues and grays across fractures and bedding planes. I can't help but wonder if some kind of local but pervasive mineralization is being displayed.

We have also been seeing some new features in the bedding. I haven't been able to pin them down, yet. I wonder if they are somewhat more irregular concretions, or a sedimentary structure. I can see some similarities to certain soft-sediment deformations, but sedimentary structures are so diverse, and there are so many I have never seen in person.

Rocks here are also showing something that resembles the rinds seen previously, but it has a different color. Other images show this stuff wrapping around fractures and onto bedding planes, and even merging into what appear to be irregular concretions.

Oh, and then there is the rock with the vertical fractures filled with some kind of mineralization. We've seen other examples recently, but this is the first I noticed that wasn't on the outside edge of one of the blocks.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[stewjack]

The nearby rocks are really intriguing, especially in false color.  Parks (aka, Turkey) appears exceptionally dark in all the filters.  That's not true of all the cobbles and pebbles lying about.  The bedrock in this area has really captured my attention.  I've found quite a few interesting features, several of which are apparent in one particular Pancam composite taken on Sol 657, which I have annotated and attached.

It may because I am not a geologist, but most descriptions of unusual terrain features, with or without accompanying graphics, leave me quite confused.

Your excellent labeled graphic was a complete exception. I felt confident that I could actually see the features that you were talking about.

I also could see Bill Harris's depression. When it comes discovering weirdess, it is hard to know what is normal. However, for what it's worth, I think I see some unusual squiggles or "ripple lines" on the rock in the upper right of his [ Bill's ] graphic. They are on the top layer of the rock. They remind me of those marks that indicated flowing water back at Eagle Crater. However, they don't seem to be part of the layering?

Jack

[Airbag]

I don't think anybody in their wildest dreams would have thought a couple of years ago (i.e. before the landings) that we'd be looking at such clear images of amazing rock formations like these. And that we can look "over the scientists' shoulders" as it were, downloading the latest images as they arrive from Mars.

Thank you NASA/JPL/Cornell!

Something I've been looking for (but have not seen clear evidence for lately) is the ripple marks as seen in Eagle Crater. Perhaps we need MI images to see those better, but the layering in these images looks pretty coarse, which would indicate a different sedimentation environment I suppose.

I wonder too if the undulations on the top right of Bill's first image are indications of ripples, or just the way it looks after the rock has worn away at a shallow angle across regular laminations?

Airbag