[X] My Assistant

[imipak]

Might it be that the repetitive images were not taken on Mars, but duplicated somewhere in the processing stream after they came down?

Sure smells like buggy code to this grizzled old victim of much code that "works OK when I tested it", but which blows up weeks or months later... did any of the values encoded in the filenames rollover recently?

On an unrelated note... any guesses what the linear feature is? eg: here http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2407L7M1.JPG
I'm tempted to guess it looks like,... ahhh, no, I'm not making that mistake again It doesn't seem to be an artifact (as it's visible in all the different filters) or dust on the lens (as it's in focus and not visible in other directions.)

Edit: hmmm, looks like a lot of noise (cosmic rays?) in the right-hand side of this frame: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2407L7M1.JPG . Coincidence?

[djellison]

Looks like a line of rock - we've seen lots of little peak's running along the edges of the pave like rock.

Doug

[nprev]

Yeah, those little lines of 'peaks' are very interesting. Guess they're leftovers from erosion of the softer sedimentary material over time, but I can't figure out if the material was extruded into the cracks of the sedimentary "pavement" (presumably by ancient groundwater action) or if the sediments just formed over the peak material & it got shaped into these lines by erosion as well...

[Astro0]

Polar projection from Tesheiner's Sol1382 pan with enhanced rover.


Astro0

[fredk]

any guesses what the linear feature is? eg: here http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2407L7M1.JPG

We've seen similar features before, but this one looks like it may be very long. Follow it across the tops of these three frames:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2407R1M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2407R1M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2407R1M1.JPG
It's almost comical how the feature seems to keep going and going and going, up and down, going... Then again, it's hard to be sure it's all one single feature from this angle.

[lyford]

Deja Vu all over again

16-Jul-2004
NASA's Mars Rovers Roll Into Martian Winter
The 'Razorback' Mystery

[tty]

Probably a fissure filling. It is known that hydrothermal action can go on for quite a long time after impact beneath meteor craters.

[dburt]

Probably a fissure filling. It is known that hydrothermal action can go on for quite a long time after impact beneath meteor craters.

Agree about the fissure filling. Don't necessarily agree about post-impact hydrothermal action in this case. Usually hydrothermal activity, whether caused by impacts or volcanism, generates some sort of pervasive wall rock alteration for a few centimeters to a few meters beyond the fissure (e.g., the high silica rocks attributed to such a cause at Home Plate, Gusev Crater). In this case there are no visible signs of alteration, an observation that suggests that the fluids filling the fissure were in more-or-less in chemical equilibrium with the rocks around them. In other words, they could have been normal groundwaters. Or the fissure filling could have some other cause altogether (e.g., capillarity involving frost condensation on salts or meltwater films). Hard to say. Clearly some sorts of aqueous fluids were involved, but not neccessarily in large quantities, or hydrothermal.

-- HDP Don

[Doc]

I remember reading Lunar and Planetary Science conference abstract on this "fissure filling".

It appears that a certain professor has proposed that these 'razor back' fins are analogous to similar features found in a few deserts here on Earth. His regular studies of this features have shown that they are formed due to deposition of minerals like gypsum in cracks by moisture. Subsequent erosion leaves these fins. Whatsmore, they are seasonal!

He thus concluded that the same fins at Meridiani may be attributed to an active or once active atmospheric water recycling phenomenon. His argument is very convincing. I myself am inclined to agree with him.

The paper may be found at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/abstracts.shtml. The paper is issue #1888 year;2006.

[TheChemist]

That work was later published in Geology [Chavdarian et al.]
There is also a more general treatise available at Icarus [Pain et al.]

At least craters at Meridiani are consistent :-)

[jvandriel]

Here is my version of the Sol 1382 Panoramic view inside Victoria Crater

after downloading, anti-vignetting, " dust-removal "

and finally stitching.

Taken with the R0 Navcam.

jvandriel

[jvandriel]

The same Panoramic view but now, I have added the images

taken on Sol 1391 with the R0 Navcam.

Again, all the images with "Dust Removal".

jvandriel

[tty]

It seems that by going at first a little to the left and then "straight down the middle" it would be possible to drive quite a long way downslope on bare rock, or at least rock only thinly covered by fine materials.
What is even more interesting it seems that by doing so you would cross at least two and perhaps three probable contacts between rock units.

[fredk]

New batch of superres pans.

Interesting description there of Cape Verde:

Many rover team scientists are hoping to be able to eventually drive the rover closer to these layered rocks in the hopes of measuring their chemistry and mineralogy.

I wonder how close they'd dare get.

Also this new detail:

These super-resolution images have allowed scientists to discern that the rocks at Victoria Crater once represented a large dune field, not unlike the Sahara desert on Earth, and that this dune field migrated with an ancient wind flowing from the north to the south across the region.

[Doc]

New batch of superres pans.

I wonder how close they'd dare get.

I wouldn't mind sending Opportunity to one of those promontories. Cape Verde seems to be the most dramatic of them all. The area surrounding Cape Verde doesn't look too bad. It wouldn't hurt, would it?