Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Look! A duck!

Good images from the Hand Lens, too.

Sol 132:

Really looks like a porphyritic basaltic tuff to these eyes. That's a basalt that had some time cooling under the surface before it erupted, giving some minerals the chance to form small crystals from the melt. Some of the larger minerals almost look like they are pieces of other rocks (lithic fragments of obsidian) but it is hard to tell. It is also hard to tell how hard it is.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00132/mhli/0132MH0163000010R0_DXXX-br.jpg


However...it could also be a sedimentary rock formed from a basaltic source. They can actually be hard to tell apart from a primary igneous basaltic tuff on a textural basis. But I don't see anything that looks like proper sedimentary bedding layers.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00132/mhli/0132MH0163000008R0_DXXX-br.jpg


Damn, I do like the full color raw images. Remember how we used to have assemble the color images from B&W raw images of different filters? Remember Robert's on-line program for managing those images?

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