5th June 2013 Sol 296

The latest puzzle for us is Point Lake.  This small (tens of cm high) promotory in Yellowknife has unusual textures which looked at from our current distance might be gas bubbles (vesicles) in a lava or voids in a sedimentary rock.    If it really is a lava flow it would have poured over the underlying sediments and veins we are studying.  That might have released volatiles from the underlying mudstone. A sedimentary rock that fluids have corroded woudl be equally exciting. But thats speculation… we certainly dont know because experience with Curiosity tells us that high resolution views from the ChemCam remote microimager (RMI) and MAHLI will reveal much more (up to about 0.1 mm resolution).  So, we are planning to drive up to and study Point Lake within the next few sols.

It reminds me of the first few sols after landing.  We thought we were seeing rounded clasts at Goulburn but it wasnt until we drove up to the outcrop that we could work out with confidence what was really there and unpicked an important piece of Mars history…