Im in no position to make assumptions, I just said it visually reminded me of a lava field. Obviously it's mostly loose regotlith and not hardened lava. I'd be very surprised if any hard and fast conclusions are reached from just this probe, this one site. C. --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
It's not like any place I've seen, but the outcrops look sedimentary to me. Those strange ridges on the rocks, their flatness, look like depositional features. The big question in my mind is whether the material was deposited by wind or water. For example, Utah's Navajo sandstone is sedimentary rock that was formed from windblown sand. The sand dunes are still there today but have been turned to stone. Of course, I'm hoping this Martian feature is an example of sedimentary rock that formed in an ocean, and to my layman's eyes, that's what it looks like. The general flatness doesn't seem as dune-like as we are used to seeing in Utah, but still the rock could be the remains of a huge dune fractured and broke over time. So I'm anxious to find out what it really is. -- Joe
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