[meteorite-list] Mars Panorama from Curiosity Shows Petrified Sand Dunes

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4716

Mars Panorama from Curiosity Shows Petrified Sand Dunes
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 11, 2015

Some of the dark sandstone in an area being explored by NASA's Curiosity 
Mars rover shows texture and inclined bedding structures characteristic 
of deposits that formed as sand dunes, then were cemented into rock.

A panorama from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) that includes a ridge 
made of this sandstone is online at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA19818

This sandstone outcrop -- part of a geological layer that Curiosity's 
science team calls the Stimson unit -- has a structure called crossbedding 
on a large scale that the team has interpreted as deposits of sand dunes 
formed by wind. Similar-looking petrified sand dunes are common in the 
U.S. Southwest. Geometry and orientation of the crossbedding give information 
about the directions of the winds that produced the dunes.

The Stimson unit overlies a layer of mudstone that was deposited in a 
lake environment. Curiosity has been examining successively higher and 
younger layers of Mount Sharp, starting with the mudstone at the mountain's 
base, for evidence about changes in the area's ancient environment.

The dozens of individual Mastcam images combined into this panorama were 
taken on Aug. 27, 2015. Curiosity has driven about 103 yards (94 meters) 
in the subsequent two weeks, generally southward. Outcrops of the Stimson 
unit sandstone are still accessible to the rover, and researchers plan 
to use the rover to collect and analyze a drilled sample of Stimson unit 
sandstone this month.

Curiosity has been working on Mars since early August 2012. It reached 
the base of Mount Sharp last year after fruitfully investigating outcrops 
closer to its landing site and then trekking to the mountain.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's 
Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California 
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory 
Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed 
and built the project's Curiosity rover. For more information about Curiosity, 
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity


Media Contact

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov 

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo at nasa.gov 

2015-296