Matijevic Hill detailed survey, Sol 3153 - 3290 Options

[ngunn]

I think that is just an overlay of the Whitewater Lake exposure as seen by the rover on a background Crism image. I don't think this is a Crism image that in itself delineates the smectite exposure in an obvious way. (The overlay has much higher resolution than the background, and much higher resolution than Crism.)

[Bill Harris]

Could be most anywhere in this area-- the CRISM res is so low.

I want to see "Secular City" next door...

--Bill

[dburt]

44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2013), sess 252
MARS EXPLORATION ROVER: RESULTS FROM ENDEAVOUR CRATER
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2013/pdf/sess252.pdf
--Bill

Thanks much for that link. Some of the abstracts make it appear that the devitrification spherulite idea for "newberries," first debated here on UMSF, is gaining traction. In that regard, I found this abstract, from a different session, interesting also:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2013/pdf/2064.pdf

It begins with "Blueberries, newberries, and accretionary lapilli..." and describes gray-hematite coated basaltic accretionary lapilli, about 7 mm in diameter, resulting from explosive volcanism in Antarctica, including in basal surge beds that are said to mimic fluvial or eolian beds. For purposes of comparison, keep in mind that martian basalts are probably considerably more iron rich and less silicic than the ones from Antarctica.
-dburt

[Bill Harris]

And thanks for the "Newberries" PDF. That Mt Darwin photo looks almost... Martian. And in keeping with Martian environments, remember that Antarctica wasn't always as it is today.

This will prove to be a great LPSC, with the detailed work at Cape York and the initial work at Gale. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing "hey, I just noticed this at Gusev" from old Spirit data.

The Gifts that Keep on Giving, no?

--Bill

[fredk]

I think that is just an overlay of the Whitewater Lake exposure as seen by the rover on a background Crism image. I don't think this is a Crism image that in itself delineates the smectite exposure in an obvious way. (The overlay has much higher resolution than the background, and much higher resolution than Crism.)

I wondered about that myself. But the text says

Results showed the presence of the two longer wavelength bands... for the locations mapped in Fig. 2

and the Fig 2 caption says

The red area with the smectite signature corresponds to Whitewater Lake outcrops.

Both statements indicate that the red area was determined by the CRISM data rather than ground (or orbital) imagery.

About the resolution, the abstract says the regular resolution is 18 m/px. This seems to correspond to the resolution of most of Fig 2. But the text also describes the oversampled, higher resolution CRISM observations, with 5 m/px resolution. That seems to match pretty well the size of the pixels in the red, smectite patch in Fig 2. So my interpretation is that the red area is the set of pixels with smectite signature from the 5 m/px observations, overlaid on the regular resolution CY CRISM image. We may have to wait for a full paper to come out to know for sure.

[Phil Stooke]

Not sure about this... to me it looks like the very dark blue background is supposed to be the clay - the largest area being at the south end where older observations placed it and the original reason for going to the south end first. A smaller patch of dark blue under that red patch is the CRISM detection in that area and the red is an overlay of the Whitewater unit as mapped by the rover, showing the spatial match.

But we'll have to wait and see. I will be looking out for this at LPSC.

Phil

[fredk]

I think you may be right, Phil. Fig 3 is an average over all the pixels in the red area. It would seem surprizing that there'd be enough S/N in each individual pixel to define the red area that precisely based on the CRISM data.

[Bill Harris]

Could be most anywhere in this area-- the CRISM res is so low.

I want to see "Secular City" next door...

--Bill

And I'd really like to see what is in the region lower down on the Bench to the NE. Stratigraphically lower, older in time, further back into the "warmer wetter" era. Probably more of the impactite/ejectite sequence, but we won't know til we look.

--Bill

[Tesheiner]

There was a quite long drive executed today, sol 3212, placing Opportunity almost at the same site as on sol 3104.
Here's today's navcam mosaic.


And here is the one shot on sol 3104.

[atomoid]

This has got to be a record - pics from sol 882 down today, that's 6 1/2 years ago!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...2M2.JPG?sol----
That was by Beagle Crater, which a few of the oldtimers may recall was just before Victoria...

catching up on old news here.. remarkably uncanny image!
by chance a recent movie rental stuck in my head makes me i see 'engineer helmet'!
evoking schlock-fodder from the lower left of that old Spirit image! (sorry, but had to.. resistance was futile)

[Bill Harris]

remarkably uncanny image!

I've been meaning to drop into the archives and look at images and notes from that timespot. Seems that I recall that Beagle was post-Victoria ejecta blanket and uncovered interactions between the ejecta and the paleo landsurface. And there were a few odd hillocks observed as we transitioned from the typical Meridiani surface to the weathered/eroded/weathered Victoria ejecta material.

MERs. The gift that keeps on giving.

--Bill

[walfy]

Quite the protruding newberries, really fantastic structures, from sol 3207:

[walfy]

Another one with more consistent lighting also from Sol 3207. This micro overlaps the previous one I just posted:

[CosmicRocker]

Quite the protruding newberries, really fantastic structures, from sol 3207...

Beautiful, but can we cut with the formalities and just call them newbs?

[serpens]

Or newbys?