The terrain continues to challenge us as we make our way up onto the Greenheugh pediment. Monday's drive ended sooner than expected when the rover sensed the road was rockier than anticipated, so it paused to wait for further instructions from Earth. In the mean time, we took advantage of this brief pause to 'sniff' the rock field all around us.

First, we took ChemCam and Mastcam of "Tobar Mhoire" and "Ardalanish," both points on a gray-toned rock with laminations. Farther afield, the rover will capture large ChemCam RMI (10 images) and Mastcam (18 images) mosaics of "Helmsdale Fault" capturing the pediment edge. In addition, there will be a massive (58 images!)

Mastcam mosaic centered about "Feorachas," a remnant monolith in a field of various sedimentary structures. Finally, the rover will look to the north and capture "Torflundie Mire," one of several scoured areas across the pediment, in a 11 image Mastcam stereo mosaic.

Other standard imaging includes a Mastcam 360 for documenting the surrounding area, clast survey, and solar tau to measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere, as well as Navcam sky flats, line-of-sight to again look at the atmosphere in a different way, and a dust devil movie.

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

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Sols 3401-3402: Sand, Boulders and Ridges, Oh My
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 02, 2022
Curiosity has been picking her way through sand, sharp boulders and ridges to find a way up onto the Greenheugh pediment. We briefly explored the pediment more than 600 sols ago, before resuming our traverse over the Mount Sharp group sedimentary rocks that we have been driving over since ~sol 750. The science team is excited to drive up onto and investigate the very different looking rock that comprises the more resistant pediment again. As we have been driving along the side of the pediment clif ... read more