In the lower right of this image of rocks at Fram Crater,you can see spheres on stems that stick straight up from the top of the rock. Indeed, as I noted earlier, the most common orientation for these stems is roughly perpendicular to the bedding, or typically "upright". This would be unlikely at the top of a rock, where the wind would blow from the side. One sphere is so elevated there on a long narrow stem (which is hardly visible) that it looks like it is floating above the rock. It is right near the bottom margin of the image in the right corner, with two more similar ones in a line behind it. More such stemmed spheres can be seen throughout the image and in this next image, on the lower large rock, is a virtual elphin forest of stemmed spheres. There seems to be intertwined filaments on this rock as well. Rocks to the left have many dark stemlike and clustering segments.

The space.com article linked by Alcaray (Thanks!) mentions algal filaments and mats. Even Dr. Squyres downplayed the purported ripples. This just a day later after I was somewhat shot down by very well respected posters on this board for my posts about spheres with stems, algal filaments, mats, stromatolites, and lack of ripples. Like they say in the movie Alamo - sometimes its just the way you say it (that's wrong). I see that Dr. Squyres is more open minded on these issues than I believed. My frustration in the lack of closer study of the spheres, and what I consider to be misinterpretations, led me to be flippantly hypercritical, my apologies.

My strongest disagreement with the article is the purported layering within the spheres. All I saw in the sectioned spheres were curved scratches from the rat. This new image shows a naturally cleaved sphere, not the first, but the best shot yet. It has no clear internal structure.

Dr. Malins pictures have revealed sedimentary rocks from top to bottom in parts of the Valles Marineris. It may turn out that there is actually a continuous series of sediments over 9000 feet thick there. At any rate, uniformly bedded sediments thousands of feet thick have been revealed. I don't think you could get that from windblown sand and dust. Some moderately deep marine environments were likely present, in my estimation.

I am surprised that no one even suggests that these Opportunity Ledge deposits are deeper marine sediments. To me, the fine perfect layering suggests that as the strongest candidate possibility. No olivine or pyroxene whatsoever in these "etched" rocks, eh. Sabkha some say, intermittently dry, (and no doubt dusty)? Where is the basalt input from that dead sea dust? Could it not be that these are deeper water sediments, free of influence from nearshore sediment and dust, such as deep water marl, siliceous ooze, dolomite, or diatomaceous earth? The features mentioned in that article, segmented algal filaments resembling horses tails, mats, and hematite formations in clusters and "shrubs" all seem to be present in abundance, in my opinion.

On another note, seeing the darker rock outside on Fram made me question if the rock Bounce was possibly a piece of the meteorite that formed Eagle crater. These sulfate rocks may be elastic enough to spew back some of the bolide itself, no? It did match another meteorite pretty closely.