East side of Cape York, Sol 3040 - 3056 Options

[Tesheiner]

Well, my impression is that the trek south, crossing by the east side of Cape York, has started.
Here's a crude navcam mosaic taken on sol 3040. Don't you think this side of the planet is also beautiful?

[fredk]

Better to compare the two left frames or the two right frames to minimize viewing angle differences:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3044
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3044
I'd be surprized if this was a lighting effect, since at midday the sun's pretty high, and the effect we're seeing is not too far below the horizon, so not where you'd be catching reflections from the sun. Plus the two frames are only a couple of minutes apart. And they have identical filters.

IIRC, we have seen similar things over longer intervals after wind gusts. So one guess is we had a good strong gust between these two frames almost erase the tracks.

BTW, another lovely shadow-reaching-into-the-crater shot:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3051

[djellison]

So one guess is we had a good strong gust between these two frames almost erase the tracks.

Looking at this near concrete like surface - it reminds me of desert pavement - ( http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/Biology/wildameri...sertgeolgy.html ) - lots of strong winds over time blow away what little dust is there and leave behind small pebbles etc settled into an almost hard packed surface.

Those winds I'd bet are fairly consistently high, what with a tens of miles run up from the East.

Thus - rover drives over a surface that's not been touched by anything but wind for Gy's - and pushes a few pebbles down, pushes a bit of dirt around. That wind is, very quickly, going to get that dirt out of there and 'rebuild' back to the pavement formation where the dirt is now hidden from the wind between the pebbles.

We saw it happen on tracks we re-visited outside Endurance crater - but here it's just happened much quicker.

[RoverDriver]

...
Those winds I'd bet are fairly consistently high, what with a tens of miles run up from the East.
...

Hey, winds, how a bout a dust cleaning? Power is still at the same level we have been having for the past 10 Sols or so. Dust factor has not changed!

Paolo