I do not doubt the qualifications of these Nasa Geologists. I do not doubt their conclusions of an aqueous origin for these sediments. I do however, seriously doubt the evidence presented so far of any ripples or cross bedding on the micro to medium scale. This image of pyrrho is showing the bedding place surface nearly Normal to the camera, I.e. flat lying beds. Regular ripples should form roughly parallel sinuous crests within this plane, and perpendicular to the current direction. I am guessing that the "braided ripple" term they referred to indicates braided stream patterns, not normal ripples. These patterns form in flow channels as the flow dries up, and consist of small escarpments and bars aligned along the flow direction. This fits the Sabkha margin model. While that might be so, evidence from the other stratigraphic directions, cutting across the beds, is totally lacking. Braided streams, even shallow ripply ones, would have much cross bedding and cut and fill (channel and bar) structures evident in cross section. This has not been observed in any image that clearly shows the layering from the side. I have been keenly investigating every Opp image for these features. What I have observed is very thin parallel bedding with only the most minor possible rippling, and no good evidence for cross bedding or channels what so ever on these smaller scales (the exception being the larger features from the "Burns Cliff" layers, which look like they may have large cross bedding). One must be carefull in looking at these super fine layered beds, and only consider the examples where the bedding orientation can be ascertained by having more than one side exposed.

The putative ripples in this image do have roughly parallel sinuous crests. However, there are features that run right across these crests as well. I describe these as the "chicken scratch texture" that Nasa refers to as "crystal voids," only here in this particular small section, they are not dissolved out. Many of the sinuous crests have a lumpy, concatenated texture. I ascribe this (as previously at Last Chance and Stone Mountain) to some type of filamentous algal or fecal pellet strands. Here, they are less well preserved on this bedding plane exposed to higher winds at the crater rim. I believe that these fi;aments have aligned flatly along the current direction and trapped sediments in a low current marine environment. Other non biologic possibilities are filamentous mineral strands, "mineral scum", or Tufa (spring terrace) type deposits.

The beaded filamentous strands and void structure are much more evident in other micro images of this same rock such as <a href=
"http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/125/1M139280392EFF2829P2956M2M1.HTML">; this oneor this one, the given mosaic is apparently only 4 images out of the 150 total. There was a careful selection of the section that most supported the Nasa hypothesis, which is natural, but one should not ignore the rest of the picture as was done previously with the supposed "layering" of the sphere's interior (Not!).