[X] My Assistant

[ngunn]

Brilliant! Makes sense of the whole thing for someone like me too lazy to figure it out from the new imagery.

[Shaka]

I take climber's remarks and raise them by a power of TEN! Just what I've been needing, Tesh, me old matey!
Now if you could enlarge this a little more in plan view so we can recognize individual slabs in the pancams, and mark on them the RAT holes as we work down the Duck Bay transect, I will always cheer for Brazil in the World Cup!

[dburt]

Indeed intriguing. Kuenen at first glance looks very much like a conglomerate (or perhaps a breccia)!

Angular fragments would make it a breccia. As I recall (I don't offhand remember the rock's name or Sol) a glassy-appearing piece of brecciated rock was examined during the rim traverse, and some contributors here guessed it might be suevite (impact melt breccia). Let's hope for a closer look at Kuenen.

-- HDP Don

[CosmicRocker]

Edited: BTW, if anybody is interested, here's a "map" of the targets that have been imaged since the start of the plunge.

I simply wanted to add my praises, Tesh. Your latest work has been a very valuable resource.

[Stu]

I've just seen your pic Tesh and wanted to add my thanks. I didn't even realise all those rocks had been named, to be honest. If there's any justice there'll be a feature - or at least a rock! - inside VC named after you for all your hard work.

[Tesheiner]

Thanks, all.

To my eyes it could even be included (replace ?) your "Oppy route" for quite a while.

Actually I had my doubts if post it here or at the "route map" thread.
I got the idea to make it from an Alan's post (thanks mate!) at the beginning of the plunge. Since he didn't continue to update that one I did it by myself since then, including the features/targets imaged usually with the pancam like I do on the route map.

[Doc]

My complements to you Tesh.
Your map is certainly invaluable and impressive (it helped me get my bearings right).

[dvandorn]

Angular fragments would make it a breccia. As I recall (I don't offhand remember the rock's name or Sol) a glassy-appearing piece of brecciated rock was examined during the rim traverse, and some contributors here guessed it might be suevite (impact melt breccia). Let's hope for a closer look at Kuenen.

I have wanted to see impact melt since we first landed on Mars. The matrix of the breccia is the impact melt, of course -- the clasts are pieces of rock that were caught up in the melt. That melt ought to give us a first-order feel for the gross composition of the target where the Victoria impactor struck. If the melt has remained generally unaltered, we have an important clue to the mineralogical nature of the surface 'way back when this hole in the ground formed.

This assumes, of course, that any piece of impact melt we find here is of local origin. As you are fond of pointing out, Herr Doktor, there are an awful lot of impact craters on Mars... *smile*...

-the other Doug

[Aussie]

I thought that as a general rule impact melt was displaced at distance from the transient crater and lightly shocked ejecta from the deepest excavated layers was deposited in the crater vicinity?

[Doc]

I thought that as a general rule impact melt was displaced at distance from the transient crater and lightly shocked ejecta from the deepest excavated layers was deposited in the crater vicinity?

Indeed that's what I think too. So if this impact melt is from Victoria the first thing we ought to wonder about is 'why is it at the rim.'

More likely it is from another crater. Or perhaps something happened during the creation of Victoria that this impact melt got embedded in the ejecta material which in turn was deposited at the present rim?

[alan]

Thanks, all.
Actually I had my doubts if post it here or at the "route map" thread.
I got the idea to make it from an Alan's post (thanks mate!) at the beginning of the plunge. Since he didn't continue to update that one I did it by myself since then, including the features/targets imaged usually with the pancam like I do on the route map.

I liked the improved versions posted by others shortly afterwards, some with simulated rovers, more than mine so I figured it would be better to let them take over.

[dvandorn]

Impact melt can also form a lining within the crater. In smaller craters, a glassy lining is made up of impact melt. (Since we have never landed in or taken samples of the floor of a large lunar impact crater, we have almost no data on how abundant impact melts might be in the floor units of large impact craters.)

If this *is* local, I would imagine that the suevite was emplaced in the ejecta and has since eroded out of one of the prominent capes. Being harder than the surrounding rock, it would simply fall out of the cape structure and tumble down the inner slope of the crater.

-the other Doug

[Shaka]

But we have studied and modeled the formation of large craters on earth. The floor of such craters often largely consists of impact melts and melt breccias. (N.B. Chicxulub is a large crater; Victoria is a small crater.) The deeper layers are typically in situ, whereas upper layers have fallen back from the core of the ejecta column. I would not describe any of the floor melt layers as "lightly" shocked, unless we are talking about rubble from the adjacent surface being washed in by an oceanic backflow. (Not applicable, probably, for Victoria.)

[CosmicRocker]

On sol 1409 Opportunity captured an MI mosaic of part of the Smith/Lyell contact. I think I can see some textural changes across the mosaic.

I think this MI mosaic imaged the area roughly outlined on this pancam.

[dilo]

Here is the complete panoramic view taken with the R0 Navcam on Sol 1402 and Sol 1404.

jvandriel, I used your superb mosaic as usual, this time with addition of artificial colors: