20th September 2014 Sol 755

This striking image shows the flat surface of the local mudstone in the Pahrump area.  In it you can see raised ridges and veins, a bit like we saw back in Yellowknife Bay.  This may be  related to periodic dessication, as the lake deposits dried up at times in their evolution.

You can see dunes encroaching over the ancient mudstone surface.  Their dark colour is a result of their likely basaltic composition.  Its is only quite recently that we have realised that dunes are active on present day Mars. Up until HiRISE imagery in from 2006, it was thought they were all static and ‘fossilised’.  But then a lot has changed about our understanding of Mars in the last 10 years, and largely as a result of MSL!

We have just had MSL and ChemCam team meetings in Pasadena, a focus of the the discussions has been medium term planning about the observations we will make as we gradually climb Mt. Sharp.  We can expect more CheMin XRD analyses for one things and regular ChemCam observations of course.  The mineralogy and fluid history will be one of the most important aspects of this study.