Victoria Annulus, Discusions about Victoria's Apron Options

[RNeuhaus]

From today, Oppy will start to head toward the Victoria Crater which is about 500 meters away. The drive would take about one month (that is 15 soles of driven with an average of 33 meters/sol, the other 15 soles would be for other purposes or restrictive soles).

The surface around Victoria Annulus, I seems it won't be as smooth as the way between Eagle and Endurance craters but the surface would have no uniform or parallel wave of sand and dust in small size of ripple. See Phil's Victoria Annulus partial map, Tesheiner's one Victoria Crater picture

Otherwise, the surface might have ripples smaller and alike to the ones of El Dorado, on the skirt south side of Columbia Hill. Besides, the Anuulus has no outcrops except to around of few small mini-craters.

This is a change of morphology of surface around the Victoria Annulus. What does it explain about this developing kind of surface of sand? Its extension is just around the inside of Victoria's ray of ejection. That is coincidence. Around that has no bigger ripples as the outside of Annulus.

The explanation would be that around annulus has smoother rock or outcrop surface, no blocks which had not helped to build ripples by the winds. Other factor, I am not sure, is that the slope from the border of Annulus to crater is positive (going up by few meters), then this might be another factor not to build ripples. I have seen that anywhere in the desert that have a slopes does not have any ripples but only flat surface.

Any debate about why the Victoria Annulus does not look like ripples as the outside of Annulus.

Rodolfo

[Gray]

I agree with your prediction that the evaporite is probably not far below the surface here. But I'm not sure I agree that the "blueberies" would be durable enough to withstand the impact. We've seen examples of fractured 'blueberries" in other areas. An impact might pulverize them along with the evaporite. Could it be that the blueberries are a pre-impact lag deposit that survived the blast? If that's the case; and if the larger granules are tektites, we might expect to see a blueberry or two embedded in the underside of the larger granules. (If we could turn them over).

--lee

The larger granules which you suggest are tektites reminded me of taconite pellets, the rounded nodules of milled iron ore that are processed for shipping. I'm not suggesting a similar process for their origin - just an interesting coincidence of form.

[Nirgal]

Here is a panorama of the latest MI in false colors showing the bi-modally distributed pebble field:

[ugordan]

Here is a panorama of the latest MI in false colors showing the bi-modally distributed pebble field:

Awesome! Normally, I don't care for colorizations, but one can actually believe the real thing would look like that.
Really great work, Nirgal!

[RNeuhaus]

Here is a panorama of the latest MI in false colors showing the bi-modally distributed pebble field:

Nice colorization! the image speaks more if it has color!

The picture image has called me more curiosity to see all of them. The stone which I suspected most is the ones biggest and with angular edges. However at the top, middle and right of the biggest stone looks like that it has "fossil" marks. Among the spherules, there is five broken spherules (below and left (2) and right (3) from biggest stone). Interesting!

Rodolfo

[Jeff7]

I find it interesting that so many of them seem to have a little point in the center, and generally facing up.

What else caught my eye: One with a hole in it?

[glennwsmith]

Fantastic colorization Nirgal!

[centsworth_II]

Thanks Nirgal, I now have a life-size bit of Mars sitting next to my computer.

[Gray]

Very impressive Nirgal. What caught my eye was, just up from the lower left corner, is one of the larger grains with a smaller grain that appears to be embedded in it.

---lee

[tty]

I find it interesting that so many of them seem to have a little point in the center, and generally facing up.

I noticed the same thing. They look like *very* small ventifacts. If so they must have been sitting there for a loooong time.

tty

[BEHSTeacher]

I find it interesting that so many of them seem to have a little point in the center, and generally facing up.

What else caught my eye: One with a hole in it?

I see 3 with holes in them - so it can't be a camera artifact. Did someone break their necklace here?

[gregp1962]

Um, where are we?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...ZTP2560R3M1.JPG

I thought we were a long ways from anything but, small dunes.

[bluemars1]

Um, where are we?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...ZTP2560R3M1.JPG

I thought we were a long ways from anything but, small dunes.

That's from almost a month ago.

[MizarKey]

Greg, that image, for me, was immediately recognizable as the far wall of beagle from the approach...I'd know that big slab anywhere

[SacramentoBob]

I see 3 with holes in them - so it can't be a camera artifact. Did someone break their necklace here?

We need a geologist to explain what the deal is with these "holy"rocks. What could be causing such perfect little holes? When I noticed just the one at the upper left, I assumed it was a camera artifact. I have to assume that we are looking at something that disolved out of the rock, or was created when the rock formed.
Any ideas? - Sacramento Bob

[RNeuhaus]

The microcospic picture taken on scrapped track. It has no spherules but only fine grain -powder- and it is somewhat endurated.

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/...8ZP2936M2M1.JPG

Rodolfo