So the Surface of Gusev Crater is ......Clay?

The airbag scrapes indicates the surface
is maleable and soft. Clay-like?
I'm no geologist, but it's looks like
clay to me.

Opinions?

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/index.html


Clay
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c1/clay.asp

common name for a number of fine-grained, earthy materials that become plastic when
wet. Chemically, clays are hydrous aluminum silicates, ordinarily containing
impurities, e.g., potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, or iron, in small amounts

Properties of the clays include plasticity, shrinkage under firing and under air
drying, fineness of grain, color after firing, hardness, cohesion, and capacity of the
surface to take decoration. On the basis of such qualities clays are variously divided
into classes or groups; products are generally made from mixtures of clays and other
substances. The purest clays are the china clays and kaolins. "Ball clay" is a name
for a group of plastic, refractory (high-temperature) clays used with other clays to
improve their plasticity and to increase their strength. Bentonites are clays composed
of very fine particles derived usually from volcanic ash. They are composed chiefly of
the hydrous magnesium-calcium-aluminum silicate called montmorillonite. See also
fuller's earth .

Individual clay particles are always smaller than 0.004 mm. Clays often form
colloidal suspensions when immersed in water, but the clay particles flocculate
(clump) and settle quickly in saline water. Clays are easily molded into a form that
they retain when dry, and they become hard and lose their plasticity when subjected to
heat.

Clays are divided into two classes: residual clay, found in the place of origin, and
transported clay, also known as sedimentary clay, removed from the place of origin by
an agent of erosion and deposited in a new and possibly distant position. Residual
clays are most commonly formed by surface weathering, which gives rise to clay in
three ways-by the chemical decomposition of rocks, such as granite, containing silica
and alumina; by the solution of rocks, such as limestone, containing clayey
impurities, which, being insoluble, are deposited as clay; and by the disintegration
and solution of shale. One of the commonest processes of clay formation is the
chemical decomposition of feldspar .

fel´spär, feld´-) or felspar , an abundant group of rock-forming minerals which
constitute 60% of the earth's crust. Chemically the feldspars are silicates of
aluminum, containing sodium, potassium, iron, calcium, or barium or combinations of
these elements. Feldspar is found in association with all rock types, including
granite, gneiss, basalt, and other crystalline rocks, and are essential constituents
of most igneous rocks. Feldspars weather to yield a large part of the clay found in
soils. Feldspar crystals are either monoclinic or triclinic (see crystal ), and all
show clean cleavage planes in two directions. Orthoclase feldspars have cleavage
planes that intersect at right angles; triclinic feldspars, including the plagioclase
feldspars (e.g., albite, anorthite, and labradorite) and microcline, have cleavage
planes that form slightly oblique angles. Pure feldspar is colorless and transparent
but the mineral is commonly opaque and found in a variety of colors. Orthoclase and
microcline are called potassium or potash feldspars. They usually range from flesh
color to brick red, although other colors are found, and are used in the making of
porcelain and as a source of aluminum in making glass. A green variety of microcline
known as amazonite, or Amazon stone, is used for ornamental purposes. The plagioclase
feldspars are most commonly gray and occasionally red. Another form of feldspar,
labradorite, exhibits a play of colors, which makes it valuable for decorative
purposes.

Clay consists of a sheet of interconnected silicates combined with a second
sheetlike grouping of metallic atoms, oxygen, and hydroxyl, forming a two-layer
mineral such as kaolinite . Sometimes the latter sheetlike structure is found
sandwiched between two silica sheets, forming a three-layer mineral such as
vermiculite. In the lithification process, compacted clay layers can be transformed
into shale. Under the intense heat and pressure that may develop in the layers, the
shale can be metamorphosed into slate.


Clay is one of the three principal types of soil, the other two being sand and loam. A
certain amount of clay is a desirable constituent of soil, since it binds other kinds
of particles together and makes the whole retentive of water. Excessively clayey
soils, however, are exceedingly difficult to cultivate. Their stiffness presents
resistance to implements, impedes the growth of the plants, and prevents free
circulation of air around the roots. They are cold and sticky in wet weather, while in
dry weather they bake hard and crack. Clods form very often in clayey soils. Clays can
be improved by the addition of lime, chalk, or organic matter; sodium nitrate,
however, intensifies the injurious effects. In spite of their disadvantages, the
richness of clay soils makes them favorable to the growth of crops that have been
started in other soil.

I would be cassius if I were you.

:-)

The Maestro stuff didn't work well for me,
you?

jonathan wrote:

The airbag scrapes indicates the surface
is maleable and soft. Clay-like?
I'm no geologist, but it's looks like
clay to me.

Opinions?


A long, long time ago on a planet far -- well, next door, so to
speak, in galactic terms -- there lived a race with long, tan, oval
bodies and really skinny black arms and legs. They wore tophats and
monocles, and carried thin, black walking sticks.
And they exported cashews to the whole Second Arm of the Galaxy.
Not long, long ago, Robert Lowell thought he saw canals on Mars.
More recently, Professor Raymond Bradbury reveals these to have been
the roads over which the Martian Monocles transported their cashew
crops to their spaceports. The reflections Lowell thought to be
water turned out to be from a surface that seemed as if it had been
hammered flat by decades of Thunder Alley traffic.
Alas, they were one-cashew-crop farmers, for the nuts removed, in
a single season, all the nutrients from the clay in which they were
grown. The surface clay had to be removed to grow another crop, and
something had to be done with it. Fortunately, when it was merely
wetted, rolled out, and left to dry in the sun, it produced that
extremely hard, stable roadbed.
"So you see," remarks Professor Bradbury, "/Spirit/ proves that my
hammered alley really /is/ cashews clay."
--
-------(m+
~/)_|
chichi kinoko
nakute mo tsukamu
mizu-no tsuki
http://scrawlmark.org

The airbag scrapes indicates the surface
is maleable and soft. Clay-like?
I'm no geologist, but it's looks like
clay to me.

If you assume for a second that Mars have always been dry, then the 'clay'
(as a mesh for a finegrained material) would be very fluffy dust. If you
want to see mud as a consolidated clay - you would have to have some water
to do the 'ordering' of the consolidated material - and ofcause you would no
longer have a loose sediment but a rock with probably recognizeable
sedimentary stratification.

I would like for some desert-accustomed geologist to put a comment on the
Mars-surface! ... The landscape neither seem to be covered in windborn
sediment, nor deflated by wind-action. Does that mean a more or less static
morphology of the landscape - contrary to the dynamic changing that takes
place on Earth? I suppose that the cratercovered surface answers the
question - and gives a firsthand impression of the thin atmosphere or lack
of meterological dynamic.... unless the sediment is as 'cohesive' as some
pictures seems to convey and thus not easily is moved by wind.

Carsten


common name for a number of fine-grained, earthy materials that become
plastic when
wet. Chemically, clays are hydrous aluminum silicates, ordinarily
containing
impurities, e.g., potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, or iron, in small
amounts

Properties of the clays include plasticity, shrinkage under firing and
under air
drying, fineness of grain, color after firing, hardness, cohesion, and
capacity of the
surface to take decoration. On the basis of such qualities clays are
variously divided
into classes or groups; products are generally made from mixtures of clays
and other
substances. The purest clays are the china clays and kaolins. "Ball clay"
is a name
for a group of plastic, refractory (high-temperature) clays used with
other clays to
improve their plasticity and to increase their strength. Bentonites are
clays composed
of very fine particles derived usually from volcanic ash. They are
composed chiefly of
the hydrous magnesium-calcium-aluminum silicate called montmorillonite.
See also
fuller's earth .

Individual clay particles are always smaller than 0.004 mm. Clays often
form
colloidal suspensions when immersed in water, but the clay particles
flocculate
(clump) and settle quickly in saline water. Clays are easily molded into a
form that
they retain when dry, and they become hard and lose their plasticity when
subjected to
heat.

Clays are divided into two classes: residual clay, found in the place of
origin, and
transported clay, also known as sedimentary clay, removed from the place
of origin by
an agent of erosion and deposited in a new and possibly distant position.
Residual
clays are most commonly formed by surface weathering, which gives rise to
clay in
three ways-by the chemical decomposition of rocks, such as granite,
containing silica
and alumina; by the solution of rocks, such as limestone, containing
clayey
impurities, which, being insoluble, are deposited as clay; and by the
disintegration
and solution of shale. One of the commonest processes of clay formation is
the
chemical decomposition of feldspar .

fel´spär, feld´-) or felspar , an abundant group of rock-forming minerals
which
constitute 60% of the earth's crust. Chemically the feldspars are
silicates of
aluminum, containing sodium, potassium, iron, calcium, or barium or
combinations of
these elements. Feldspar is found in association with all rock types,
including
granite, gneiss, basalt, and other crystalline rocks, and are essential
constituents
of most igneous rocks. Feldspars weather to yield a large part of the clay
found in
soils. Feldspar crystals are either monoclinic or triclinic (see
crystal ), and all
show clean cleavage planes in two directions. Orthoclase feldspars have
cleavage
planes that intersect at right angles; triclinic feldspars, including the
plagioclase
feldspars (e.g., albite, anorthite, and labradorite) and microcline, have
cleavage
planes that form slightly oblique angles. Pure feldspar is colorless and
transparent
but the mineral is commonly opaque and found in a variety of colors.
Orthoclase and
microcline are called potassium or potash feldspars. They usually range
from flesh
color to brick red, although other colors are found, and are used in the
making of
porcelain and as a source of aluminum in making glass. A green variety of
microcline
known as amazonite, or Amazon stone, is used for ornamental purposes. The
plagioclase
feldspars are most commonly gray and occasionally red. Another form of
feldspar,
labradorite, exhibits a play of colors, which makes it valuable for
decorative
purposes.

Clay consists of a sheet of interconnected silicates combined with a
second
sheetlike grouping of metallic atoms, oxygen, and hydroxyl, forming a
two-layer
mineral such as kaolinite . Sometimes the latter sheetlike structure is
found
sandwiched between two silica sheets, forming a three-layer mineral such
as
vermiculite. In the lithification process, compacted clay layers can be
transformed
into shale. Under the intense heat and pressure that may develop in the
layers, the
shale can be metamorphosed into slate.


Clay is one of the three principal types of soil, the other two being sand
and loam. A
certain amount of clay is a desirable constituent of soil, since it binds
other kinds
of particles together and makes the whole retentive of water. Excessively
clayey
soils, however, are exceedingly difficult to cultivate. Their stiffness
presents
resistance to implements, impedes the growth of the plants, and prevents
free
circulation of air around the roots. They are cold and sticky in wet
weather, while in
dry weather they bake hard and crack. Clods form very often in clayey
soils. Clays can
be improved by the addition of lime, chalk, or organic matter; sodium
nitrate,
however, intensifies the injurious effects. In spite of their
disadvantages, the
richness of clay soils makes them favorable to the growth of crops that
have been
started in other soil.

I wonder if the clingly soil is electrostatic.
Their is little UV shielding due thin atmosphere.
The solar intensity at equatorial Mars is
about the same as Earth's arctic circle, due to Mars greater solar distance.
Also the wind may ionize the soil. There is little humidity to deionize.

rick++ wrote:
I wonder if the clingly soil is electrostatic.
Their is little UV shielding due thin atmosphere.
The solar intensity at equatorial Mars is
about the same as Earth's arctic circle, due to Mars greater solar distance.
Also the wind may ionize the soil. There is little humidity to deionize.

That was my thought a couple of days ago.
--
Geo Communications Services -- www.geocommunications.net
Jo Schaper's Missouri World -- http://www.missouriworld.net

"Dennis M. Hammes" wrote:

jonathan wrote:

The airbag scrapes indicates the surface
is maleable and soft. Clay-like?
I'm no geologist, but it's looks like
clay to me.

Opinions?


A long, long time ago on a planet far -- well, next door, so to
speak, in galactic terms -- there lived a race with long, tan, oval
bodies and really skinny black arms and legs. They wore tophats and
monocles, and carried thin, black walking sticks.
And they exported cashews to the whole Second Arm of the Galaxy.
Not long, long ago, Robert Lowell thought he saw canals on Mars.
More recently, Professor Raymond Bradbury reveals these to have been
the roads over which the Martian Monocles transported their cashew
crops to their spaceports. The reflections Lowell thought to be
water turned out to be from a surface that seemed as if it had been
hammered flat by decades of Thunder Alley traffic.
Alas, they were one-cashew-crop farmers, for the nuts removed, in
a single season, all the nutrients from the clay in which they were
grown. The surface clay had to be removed to grow another crop, and
something had to be done with it. Fortunately, when it was merely
wetted, rolled out, and left to dry in the sun, it produced that
extremely hard, stable roadbed.
"So you see," remarks Professor Bradbury, "/Spirit/ proves that my
hammered alley really /is/ cashews clay."

on 3, 1-2-3, grooooan!

--
-------(m+
~/)_|
chichi kinoko
nakute mo tsukamu
mizu-no tsuki
http://scrawlmark.org

"Dennis M. Hammes" wrote in message
...
jonathan wrote:

The airbag scrapes indicates the surface
is maleable and soft. Clay-like?
I'm no geologist, but it's looks like
clay to me.

Opinions?


A long, long time ago on a planet far -- well, next door, so to
speak, in galactic terms -- there lived a race with long, tan, oval
bodies and really skinny black arms and legs. They wore tophats and
monocles, and carried thin, black walking sticks.
And they exported cashews to the whole Second Arm of the Galaxy.
Not long, long ago, Robert Lowell thought he saw canals on Mars.
More recently, Professor Raymond Bradbury reveals these to have been
the roads over which the Martian Monocles transported their cashew
crops to their spaceports. The reflections Lowell thought to be
water turned out to be from a surface that seemed as if it had been
hammered flat by decades of Thunder Alley traffic.
Alas, they were one-cashew-crop farmers, for the nuts removed, in
a single season, all the nutrients from the clay in which they were
grown. The surface clay had to be removed to grow another crop, and
something had to be done with it. Fortunately, when it was merely
wetted, rolled out, and left to dry in the sun, it produced that
extremely hard, stable roadbed.
"So you see," remarks Professor Bradbury, "/Spirit/ proves that my
hammered alley really /is/ cashews clay."


hehe, well you had me going.



--
-------(m+
~/)_|
chichi kinoko
nakute mo tsukamu
mizu-no tsuki
http://scrawlmark.org

"So you see," remarks Professor Bradbury, "/Spirit/ proves that my
hammered alley really /is/ cashews clay."


hehe, well you had me going.

I told you to be cassius.