Spirit & Opportunity *3* - ...continued from previous threads

dickbill · 2004-02-10 10:27:38

Let's see, we found round beads in an impact crater. It's already known the act of impact melts rock and throws drops out, which cool into beads when or before they land. I'm not surprised to find geological evidence of an impact crater, Mars is covered with them. However, I'm sure the geologists will argue the details. I also expect the microscopic imager will find fracture cones.

this concrete in meridiani outcrop is definitively hot topic, no need to post again the pic. A comment about the cement, it seems to be composed of smaller nodules. Could it be molten lava entering water ?
In my old geology book, there is picture of submersed lava in HAwai, they are call pillow lava, formed when the lava entered the ocean and was brutally cool down. And you can see the small riddles at the surface of these "pillow" shaped solidified lava.
Here it seems much smaller nodules and nothing which look like an Hawaian pillow lava, but who knows, the martian magma might be very different in composition and viscosity and have created these mini nodules, maybe they are the fossils of gas bubble escaping the magma in the contact with water. They might be some cavity inside then ?
Anyway, the suspens is great.

SohoBoy · 2004-02-10 10:42:30

[=http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/tiff/PIA05237.tif]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/tiff/PIA05237.tif

of note

the three short 'tubes' on the left edge of the spherule. Radiating from the comnnection point of the tube nearest camera a 'fan' barely of surface striations with a jagged edge. This can just be made out with the naked eye but becomes obvious when enhanced in Photoshop. Whether the single cells which makeup these striations are an artefact or not is moot.

[http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1295 … 33M2M1.JPG]http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1295 … 33M2M1.JPG
have a close look at the patch on the shelf above the spherule where the surface has flaked off in an irregular circle at x440 y140..hmmm...looks just like coral skeleton inside

SohoBoy · 2004-02-10 11:02:35

Could it be molten lava entering water ?

I doubt it. The layers are:

1. too thin - lava flows are generally much thicker

2. too flat and even. The pillow lavas Ive seen are much more irregular

remember the scale. The biggest rocks in opportunity crater are only about half a meter high. These layers are really thin.

Im still hoping for Limestone. Deep ocean sediment is my guess. So is this a critter that lives on/in the ocean bottom and grows by adding concentric layers of cells over a secreted skeleton? It's the way they hang off the rocks [http://www.keithlaney.com/OCI/P3.jpg]on stalks that gets me. Whatever they are they're a lot tougher than the "cement". I/m not too happy with the volcanic spit theory as they look too regular. Are there any volcanic Earth rocks that have inclusions as regular as this? (geologist in the house?)

Looking forward to the RAT having a go at one of these and the spectrometer results

dickbill · 2004-02-10 11:03:12

Shaun, can you keep yourself cool enough or do you need to put ice on your head to not succumb to overexcitation ?
I am sure you consult the NASA site 1000X every hour in hope of an update on these mysterious...concretions...or whatever they are.

Stu · 2004-02-10 12:17:25

Personally I'm all *for* over excitation on here; we're all here because we're fascinated and enthralled and hypnotised by Mars and her mysteries, and each day's batch of new images makes me giddy to be honest, especially when something as unexpected and as bizarre as these "beads" shows up.

I'm with you Shaun, keep checking those websites! The day I don't get over-excited by almost-live pictures from Mars is the day I'll be put underground.

Stu · 2004-02-10 12:39:29

Looking at this pic...

[http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/galler … 60R1M1.JPG]http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....1M1.JPG

...I can't help wondering if some pesky, mischevious martian is tossing handfuls of marbles in the rover's path to *make* it slip... :;):

Link · 2004-02-10 12:52:53

Sohoboy,

I can see the fan around the stem, nice find. Could you post enhanced Photoshop pic.

Link

dickbill · 2004-02-10 13:03:56

Im still hoping for Limestone. Deep ocean sediment is my guess. So is this a critter that lives on/in the ocean bottom and grows by adding concentric layers of cells over a secreted skeleton? It's the way they hang off the rocks [http://www.keithlaney.com/OCI/P3.jpg]on stalks that gets me. Whatever they are they're a lot tougher than the "cement". I/m not too happy with the volcanic spit theory as they look too regular. Are there any volcanic Earth rocks that have inclusions as regular as this? (geologist in the house?)
Looking forward to the RAT having a go at one of these and the spectrometer results

I was kidding with Shaun by the way, he knows. We all know that he is a fervent defender of life on Mars TODAY.

Well, sediment ? meridiani is hematite rich, which mineral forms in water, either through hydrothermal volcanism or through a biological process. So it's possible to have sedimentation but we could also have volcanism and magma flow and magma tubes and noduled formed by fumeroles.
No analysis of the spherules and the cement composition have been relesed, so we don't know the composition. The hematite crystal I have seen in books are not choncoidal in form but I am not a geologist and here it's Mars, so who knows. But at one point, we must see that hematite somewhere, no ?

Palomar · 2004-02-10 14:03:54

[=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040210/ap_on_sc/mars_rovers_4]Opportunity does "scoot and shoot"

*PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Opportunity rover has embarked on a "scoot and shoot" on Mars, driving counterclockwise around the rocky inner perimeter of a crater while photographing it in detail...

Opportunity is boot-scootin'! :laugh:

--Cindy

SohoBoy · 2004-02-10 14:49:42

Sohoboy,
I can see the fan around the stem, nice find. Could you post enhanced Photoshop pic.
Link

[http://www.davidianwilson.pwp.blueyonde … 37_mod.gif]Mars sphere, tubes 'coral' patch enhanced

its a gif, but as the original is greyscale theres no visible quality loss. 482Kb

all they've said sofar about the composition of the outcrop is that it has a high sulphur content - significantly more than any other Mars rock so far analysed.

SohoBoy · 2004-02-10 16:00:07

But at one point, we must see that hematite somewhere, no ?

I was watching the news conference earlier and one of the NASA guys said that the measurements done so far show that the richest source of haematite is the surface of the plain beyond the crater and that the outcrop itself measures low/no haematite - but as the spheres only make up a small proportion of the outcrop that does not rule them out as the source. That they may well be is supported by the observation that the airbag marks, where the spheres have been pushed below the surface show a low haematite reading.

[http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA05204.jpg]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA05204.jpg

spectrum red = high haematite , blue low haematite

just a guess... nodules = blue grey = ferric oxide aka haematite, mars dust = red = ferrous oxide. Same colour difference as is seen in the banding in ferruginous marls on earth when the depositional environment switches from oxidising to reducing.

SohoBoy · 2004-02-10 16:50:30

a nice... um... trick of the light?

layering up images in Photoshop taken in different lighting and then flicking thru the layers is a good way of getting a feel for the 3d shapes of objects.. Single images can be very deceptive. The above lept out at me while working thru sol 13.

The light coloured 'tendril' attached to the rock appears to 'inflate' towards camera at the same time as the shadows are lenghtening towards camera. As its seems to be attached to the side of the rock facing camera you would expect it to dissapear into the shadow, not vice versa.very odd.

pseudo colour composites from [http://www.lyle.org/mars/]http://www.lyle.org/mars/

RobertDyck · 2004-02-10 17:02:05

Could it be molten lava entering water ?

Watch the quotations; you formatted it to look like I said "lava entering water" when it was really dickbill.

SohoBoy · 2004-02-10 17:50:19

Watch the quotations; you formatted it to look like I said "lava entering water" when it was really dickbill.

Yes SIR!!!

...dont worry...I'll get the the hang of it..eventually

hup two three four...

Link · 2004-02-10 20:34:19

I am just a novice dumb butt, does the following NASA statement mean no ocean at this site, beads are volcanic in nature and forget looking for past ocean type fossels. That statement has taken some of the wind out of my sails. I was sure hoping that was ocean layed sediment rock.

'The sulfur-rich rock, probably volcanic ash or compacted, windblown dust, sheds the relatively harder granules as the outcrop erodes, said Squyres, the mission's main scientist. '

Link

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-10 20:56:09

Yes, Dickbill, I do have ice packs on my head (on top of my metal helmet of course) to keep my fevered brain from exploding with excitement!
You're right that I champion the idea of bacterial life on Mars today but I've never been convinced we'd find fossils of anything more complex than that. Not that I would be too upset to find fossilised coral reefs, though!

Unfortunately for the coral reef or limestone fans, the consensus at JPL is that they've almost come to a conclusion about the outcrop's true nature and it mightn't suit the romantics amongst us.
To quote from the Los Angeles Times:-

The team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has narrowed the possibilities for the rock formation down to two, Dr Squyres said. "One is that it is volcanic ash, and the other is that it is windblown dust compacted into sedimentary rock."

Apparently they've ruled out sandstone as well because the structure of the rock is too fine. It seems all the evidence of a watery origin for the features at Meridiani is evaporating rapidly.

dickbill · 2004-02-10 22:07:13

Apparently they've ruled out sandstone as well because the structure of the rock is too fine. It seems all the evidence of a watery origin for the features at Meridiani is evaporating rapidly.

Until we see the famous hematite of Meridiani, you cannot say that of the whole meridiani area. Maybe that outcrop was recent compared to other part of meridian. But we know that the hematites are not far. In my Simon and Schuster's guide to rocks and minerals, there are 3 pictures of hematite crystals, they look like lames or opaque crystals, grey metallic with irridescent reflects, sometimes formed in 'rose' petals . Here is what they say :
"(Hematite) environment: a common accessory mineral of many igneous rocks, especially lavas, because they form under oxidizing conditions , as compared to magnetite. Rare in plutonic rocks but common in pegmatites and hydrothermal veins ....also occurs as a sublimation product of volcanic exhalations."
"0ccurence : the main deposits are sedimentary in origin, formed by the action of meteoric waters on sedimentary formations rich in iron carbonate and silicate. The largest deposits are at lake superior, USA, Quebec, etc"

so, I am not ready yet to give up on the water/volcanism theory in Sinus Meridiani.

PS: Where are the NASA briefing on TV, I don't see them anymore on c-span ?

1smlstp · 2004-02-10 23:50:55

dickbill,
NASA is being REALLY skimpy on the news conferences. It seems like only 2 or 3 a week now. There wasn't a news conference for Tuesday. The next one will be Thursday at 10:00AM pacific. I wish they'd do more.

SohoBoy,
Glad to see there is somebody else here that is playing with the images to get more out of them. I really like the sol 13 image you posted. It shows a lot of detail I have missed. I never thought about doing sequential images. Good job.

Arccos,
I meant to ask the other day, how did you get the parachute & backshell images before they were released in the press conference? That was good work. Care to share your inside sources?

I'm really glad to see all the activity in this thread. Spirit has 217 new images today and Opportunity has 64 new images. With all this stuff going on, I'm just wondering if anybody else is finding it hard to keep up with everything? Maybe I'm just slow.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-11 00:23:17

Yes indeed, Dickbill. Just because this little crater doesn't have sandstone outcrops, or even carbonate outcrops, doesn't mean there aren't any in Meridiani.
It's quite probable that there has been no significant body of water in the Meridiani region for at least a billion years. Since then, no doubt, there have been various events which have left their mark in the area including impacts, distant volcanic eruptions, deposition of dust, and wind based erosion.
As you suggest, the outcrop under examination right now is almost certainly a relatively recent feature. The crater in question is only about two metres deep at present and may never have been much deeper than four or five metres deep when formed(?), having probably half-filled with wind blown debris since. The 'bedrock' revealed by the impact, and currently under investigation, may have formed in just the past few million years - a blink of the eye in geological terms.
Any evidence of large long-standing bodies of water would more likely be found deeper in the ground; perhaps several metres or even tens of metres deeper.
It's times like these we need a human being on the spot with digging and drilling equipment!

Spirit may be in a better position to discover sandstone or carbonate strata in the bigger crater it will soon be visiting. If the impact which caused that crater has excavated the ground to a depth of ten or twenty metres, our chances of finding older bedrock are of course much better.
I tend to think the stuff Opportunity's looking at is just superficial weathering products.
???

Any thoughts?

1smlstp · 2004-02-11 01:02:01

Any thoughts?

I just had an awful thought. What if the Hematite is just a very thin layer on the top of the Meridiani area and it came from an eruption or impact of a small area and was just recently deposited? Then what we thought was possibly a large area of water may actually be a much smaller area. Ugh!

Arccos · 2004-02-11 02:01:55

1smlstp: There's nothing special about getting those images. I read a notice on MER's website about the shell so I browsed through Opportunity's raw images. The raw images (as you probably know) are available for everyone on MER's website. It takes some time for NASA specialist to create 'official' images from the raw ones - and the official images (usually much better in quality) are presented on a nearest press conference. That's it.
Also there is one more aspect: I live in Europe. So, while you sleep, I can browse on Internet and post pics .

Stephen · 2004-02-11 05:34:31

I just had an awful thought. What if the Hematite is just a very thin layer on the top of the Meridiani area and it came from an eruption or impact of a small area and was just recently deposited? Then what we thought was possibly a large area of water may actually be a much smaller area. Ugh!

Didn't the Mini-TES find Hematite in Opportunity's crater--except where its airbags had bounced on the way in? That would seem to imply a thin layer of the stuff.

=====
Stephen

SohoBoy · 2004-02-11 05:45:28

Evidence of secondary deposition process on Opportunity ledge. Sol 17 Pancam:
[http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1P1296 … 1.JPG.html]http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1P1296 … 1.JPG.html

look at the rock over to the right at x 800 y 700

the 'bedding planes' are edge on roughly towards us on this rock, but there is a curved flattish tapering tube in a 'W' shape on the surface of the rock which cuts across the bedding plane. If thats just an erosional feature, it's pretty freaky as the bedding does look to be running underneath it. We could do with a better close up to figure this one out.

Best guess? a splat of thick liquid impact or volcanic ejecta which has splashed across the fractured face of the rock. More fanciful and interesting interpretations are of course possible.

Palomar · 2004-02-11 06:37:11

*Byron, I couldn't help but recall your jestful comment (which gave me the intended good laugh): "In truth, they're going to drive those things until they drop" when I read the following:

[http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … _rovers_12]Spirit sets 1-day driving (distance) record

*She traveled nearly 70 feet yesterday! That's terrific...and 3 times the distance Sojourner ever traveled. And it's our formerly ailing baby which took all those momentous steps! How especially wonderful.

They're considering commanding both S & O to take upwards of 140-feet trips.

--Cindy

P.S. Maybe the "glacier move" comment isn't applicable anymore (though it also gave me a good laugh).

dickbill · 2004-02-11 09:25:01

where do you you guys get the all scientific results (if not the raw results, at least the interpretation) for the rovers ?
the web site is barely updated every 2 days now, actually the updates are about the song the rovers wake up, and the distance they drive.
Maybe they reshape the web site ?
Anyway, I feel frustrated. Is that the way NASA intends to interest the public ?

I guess I shouldn't complain, the Mars express web site has updated its site today, with ONE new picture, after almost 2 weeks !

A message for the geeks in command : people are educated in science now, they go to school, and yes, they want more than the songs played and stuff like that. And even those not educated in science are interested !

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