JMS, thanks for the tip. Some really fascinating abstracts! Wish I could attend.

Session 6, "Planetary Geology" also looks to have some good updates from the rovers and orbiters.

This quote from "MER Investigations of the Columbia Hills" on that panel made me happy:

>Immediate plans are to perform IDD work on outcrop material and then ascend the summit of Husband Hill, which is the highest peak in the Columbia Hills, and winter over here.

Parking on top of the highest hill we can get to for the winter, I like that thought. Even if it can't drive much, Spirit should still have enough energy to gradually assemble the Pan of the Century up there. Heck, while it's at it, maybe some good sunset movies, or how about a movie formed by doing navcam pans every half hour over teh course of a day. Not terribly scientific, I know, but if it is just perched on the summit for weeks it doesn't seem _too_ big a splurge to get some pretty pictures while we are at it.

Back to science: Paper 6-10 at that session, by a guy named Donald Burt visiting at LPI, argues that what we see at Meridiani are *not* evaporites and concretions, but ejecta and lapilli formed in the ejecta sheet. He argues you had a big impact into an area with subsurface ices and salts ("brine splat", he calls it). http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2004AM/finalprogram/abstract_80305.htm