EVA-7 team had a terrific reconnaissance mission this morning and the geologist was fortunate to be able to be part of it. The goal of the EVA was to map roads north of the Brahe Highway and to re-open Schiaparelli Highway. The trip north of Brahes was an outstanding meander through the rounded hills of the Morrison. Klaus noted a couple of spots he wanted to examine on the way back. The northern terminus of the traverse was at the Muddy River at:

Easting 518390, Northing 4257479

Prior to the river was a rounded knob Klaus informally will refer to as Mel's Rock Pile (fans of SCTV may remember the reference). It was chock full of angular vesicular basalt, chert, and petrified wood. Klaus will ask the RST to help in an interpretation.

On the return trip, Klaus asked the engineers to halt so he could examine what, at least to him, was a rare occurrence of cliffs in the Morrison. With Remon's help, we have a panorama, stitched together of the cliff face showing faulting to the left and unconformity to the left and right. In the photo, the stratigraphy is broken by a massive block of sandstone? with discontinuous layering on either side. RST? The cliff is located at:

Easting 518390, Northing 4257479

On the other side of the trail, directly across from the cliffs, James said, "Hey, Kurt, this looks weird." Klaus said, "Can you be more specific?" James in an apt description, said it looked like God had dumped some rocks on top of this outcrop. Scrambling up to where he was, we saw black rocks (basalt?) perched on top of the sandstone and scattered in the drainage. The rocks were not vesicular, rather dense, and nothing like their surroundings. Further scouting revealed drainage patterns showing evidence that the rocks had to have come from above. There was no indication of these rocks in any of the local outcrops indicating that they must be remnants from a higher eroded layer. RST? These rocks are located at:

Easting 517566, Northing 4256521

All in all it was an outstanding outing. See the photos and help with the interpretation.