Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Sol 166

This close up view of one of the veins was taken as an RMI image by one of the two ChemCam lasers after the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS).  The intensity of optical emmisions (LIBS) of different elements suggest that these are sulphate veins.

However, in addition to LIBS, the RMI imaging of ChemCam  has proved to be a very powerful, high resolution tool, as this photo shows.

So why do we need to drill and get SAM and ChemCam analyses?  Well for one thing APXS and ChemCam cannot tell us directly about the structure of the mineral phase, only its composition.  For instance, gypsum CaSO4.2H2O and anhydrite CaSO4 look similar in APXS analyses so CheMin will be looking to distinguish between such minerals.