To the Cape! (part 2), For real this time! Options

[Tesheiner]

This is a navcam mosaic taken after driving during sol 1559.


Mmm, remember the name of this thread?
To the Cape! Yeah!

[Juramike]

I wonder how friable the exposed rocks are?

Those rocks in the images Stu posted look like they've been windblasted and eroded to the point like they are fine layers of phyllo dough ready for baklava.

One gentle push and they'd all go *poof*....

('Course, they survived the impact when they fell OK). How come we don't see more chunks? Did these bounce to their present position?

It's kinda hard to tell, but it looks like they got eroded before they fell away from the cliff. But the horizontal layering on the perpindicular rock in the image looks suspect.

-Mike

[EDIT: Ha! Nick beat me to it with the erosion questions!]

[fredk]

'Course, they survived the impact when they fell OK.

My impression, for what it's worth, was that it's been a long time since they fell. They may have been much larger when they fell, and this is all that's left after millenia of wind erosion.

[Juramike]

My impression, for what it's worth, was that it's been a long time since they fell. They may have been much larger when they fell, and this is all that's left after millenia of wind erosion.

So the question is: If these blocks down here have fragile exposed sheet-like structures after being eroded by wind, shouldn't the cliff faces also have fragile sheet-like structures?

Are they in the same erosion environment?

Or are the cliff faces too high to have been subjected to millenia of bouncing grains. Maybe the foot of the cliff will have these??

[fredk]

Maybe the foot of the cliff will have these??

I think you can see them at the foot of the cliff in some places, like near the left side of the image I added to this post.