We are perched just below the "Marker Band," a thin dark band whose origin is unclear. As Michelle noted yesterday, we found some amazing textured float rocks in our workspace but were not in a good position to do contact science here, so we moved back a little in order to get it today.

These float rocks appear to have originated in the Marker Band, which can be seen running from lower left to upper right in the accompanying Navcam image. There are several different textures here - the most noticeable are the ropey elongated ridge features, or "sausages" as one of our colleagues Juergen described them.

Underlying the sausages features is smoother bedrock. There are also rougher areas on top of the sausages, which look like they might have been altered (by later fluid movement for example). Finally we have the underlying non-Marker Band bedrock, the smooth rock the floats themselves are sitting on.

It was hard to narrow down our choices with so many interesting targets; we wanted to do a little bit of everything. The rover planners were game to get as much in as possible, so APXS and MAHLI get a rare triple whammy of targets: unbrushed on the sausages at "Iracema," brushed underlying smooth float rock at "Mel" and then brushed in-place non-Marker Band bedrock at "Mamupi." Mastcam is getting multispectral imagery on both brushed targets and ChemCam is using LIBS to also analyze the bedrock at Mel.

ChemCam is then turning its focus onto the in-place Marker Band above us, using RMI to image the ropey textures at "Pintada" and LIBS to analyze "Soco," a bright rock where the Marker Band is in contact with the local bedrock. RMI will also capture images of layering within that in-place Marker Band at "Buena Vista."

Mastcam continues to document stratigraphy in this area, taking a very large mosaic (83 images) along the Marker Band itself and a slightly smaller (46 images) mosaic on "Canta," a butte in the distance but above the Marker Band (in the upper left of the Navcam image).

Once all of this has been completed, we drive a short distance, scooching closer to the in-place Marker Band, for the coming weekend plan.

Related Links
Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

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Can't Touch This: Sol 3640
Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 02, 2022
We arrived at the spectacular workspace pictured above, but what made it spectacular - rocks - is what also made it tricky. Our left front wheel was propped up just enough on one of the lovely and interesting rocks to make it unsafe to unstow the arm. Thus, as Deirdra, one of my planning partners said - it felt like Mars was taunting us with some early 1990s MC Hammer. Fortunately, the rover planners were confident in finding a way to reposition the rover to stabilize us enough to get the arm out, ... read more