21st November 2014 Sol 815

This MAHLI image shows the importance of the DRT Dust Removal Tool brushes.  A section of Pahrump has been exposed by the DRT to reveal striking relict crystal structures in the fine grained sediment.  These will have formed after the rock lithified, perhaps by evaporation at the same time as the gypsum veins formed in Yellowknife Bay.  When we see textures like this we always think about terrestrial analogues, the flagstones which pave some of the streets of Scotland, taken from the ‘Old Red Sandstone’ ~350 Myr shallow lake beds of Orkney and Caithness (see picture of these in outcrop) are one type of terrestrial rock that contains such structures.