Kelly Cole and I traversed fairly close to the Hab next to the Musk Observatory which practically sits on top of some beautiful Dakota Sandstone deposits which is practically littered with a variety of concretions. Kelly was in charge of observing and acquiring single, double and triple-modal concretions throughout the entire formation. There was a mix of iron-rich and light colored concretions within the same host rock. I obtained all host rock samples with the occassional large, almost spherical concretions. It must be noted that not all concretions are spherical and have displayed (as we have seen and documented here on Mars) that some depict a "flat" geometry. This may be due to the concretions weathering out of the desert varnish or the affect of aeolian processes within that particular regime.

If time permits I will continue to add these concretions to the already existing inventory obtained from our previous EVAs. As I have stressed in my previous reports, we adhered to the "1 in 20 rule" to which we only collect one sample out of twenty in the field. That way, if others are interested in this study, there will be enough for others to observe and obtain samples from of their own.

I took a Pan image of the formation and will (when time permits) get a soil sample from each and every bed. I will mosaic these images together and will post them to our Crew #36 website(s) when the data is extrapolated and the imagery completed.

If there is anyone interested in this study, my e-mail is always open to you to entertain any questions and/or comments that you may have about this geographic locale on Mars (Veronica.Zabala@asu.edu).