[X] My Assistant

[glennwsmith]

I am a newcomer to this site, so please bear with me.

From today's (Sol 460) rear Hazcam views, it appears that Spirit has driven onto strata which looks remarkably like the "blueberry"-strewen Meridiani plain!!!

This is confirmed by the 4 Pancam views, which also seem to show the blueberries, as well as the same finely-layered, blueberry-filled rock found everywhere on Meridiani.

There's a lot more that could be said about the implications of this, if true, but I would first like to know if anyone else has the same reaction to these photos as myself.

Glenn

[Trader]

Good thing that they almost got stuck in their climb and had to turn back -- would have just blown by this find! If this is a localized area of concentrated hematite, why did they not see it on mini-TES scans?

Trader

[john_s]

I see a beautiful outcrop, but I don't see super-fine layering like at Meridiani. The rock looks similar to some of the more coarse-grained rocks that Spirit has investigated on the climb up to LL, except now we have an outcrop to study. Some of the striations may be due to wind erosion, resulting from the exposed ridgetop location, though maybe there's intrinsic layering too. I bet it turns out to be a water-altered possible pyroclastic rock, like we've seen before, but the outcrop will hopefully allow us to learn a lot more about what formed it.

And though there are interesting grit-sized grains in that dune deposit, they could be any number of things, and I bet they aren't hematite concretions...