[X] My Assistant

[aldo12xu]

I took the enhanced orbiter photos of the Columbia Hills that Phil Stooke posted at

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...opic=1043&st=15

and tried my best to tie together stratigraphic units. I've come up with a half dozen layers that are stacked one on top of another. Phil did a great job with the photos, but there still isn't enough resolution to make any confident conclusions......except that Ultreya isn't a hole. But it does seem to be a cliff and the terraced layers immediately east of it do seem to indicate some vertical relief (or is it the MOC images playing tricks on the eye?).

Anyways, let's try to put our heads together and sort this thing out. It's too long in between Mars conferences to wait The link is on my homepage.

Cheers,
Aldo.

[Phil Stooke]

Stratigraphy.., interesting. It would be good to play with this. I had also tried to think about this, but a bit to the west:



An attempt to trace the layering on the ridge to West Spur in this cPROTO image. The trouble is, my sketch is not a unique interpretation... you could easily draw the lines connecting in a different way. But it really does look to me as if the layering could be mapped eventually.

What I have drawn suggests that the compositions observed on West Spur could be related to what is found on the ridge. But as far as I know that doesn't match what has been described so far. But if, on the climb up the hill, rocks very similar to those on West Spur are found, that might tie the two sets of lines together properly.

Phil