[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...aving_larry.jpg (476kb)

Larry is the outcropping to the right - Methuselah is the layered rock on the left.

As an interesting point to judge distances - assuming zero slip the marks made by the hold-down-brackets on the wheel tread are 80cm apart - or about 2ft 7inches

Doug

[TheChemist]

Exploratorium is still dead, but at last JPL updated its site, and the first pancams from Sol465 have been uploaded.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p465.html

[arccos]

Uuuh. This looks pretty Opportunity-like to me!

[dvandorn]

It looks like fine-grained sedimentary rock that's not *quite* as finely layered as the evaporite at Meridiani. It doesn't seem to show much in the way of concretions, concretion pits, or vugs (though you'd probably have to RAT some of the rock to really see if it had vugs).

If it's ashfall- or aeolioan-deposition sandstone, the layers look pretty thin... but not so thin as to completely preclude either.

However -- and this is a big however -- is it just me, or is there cross-bedding present in a lot of the layering in that rock? I see a lot of the layers forming into little crescents, just like in the rocks at Meridiani.

If that *is* cross-bedding, I'd bet that these are liquid-deposition sedimentary rocks.

In any event, the minerology investigations are going to be *very* interesting on this one... *grin*...

-the other Doug