“Last Chance” Evidence of Ancient Water Flow

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Caption:

Figure 1

This view of the lower portion of the martian rock called "Last Chance" (see PIA05482) shows a close-up of texture interpreted as cross-lamination evidencethat sediments forming the rock were laid down in flowing water. NASA'sOpportunity took the original image during the rover's 38th sol in Mars'Meridiani Planum region (March 2, 2004).

In the central part of the image, the dip of fine layers at angles to eachother (cross laminae) suggests that the water that created thecross-lamination was flowing from left to right. Interpretive blacklines trace these cross-laminae. Interpretive blue lines indicateboundaries of possible sets of cross-laminae (Figure 1).

Figure 2

A three-dimensional visualization of this portion of the rock offersadditional details of the cross-lamination (see PIA05626) . The visualization and theimage from the panoramic camera are compared to show a point ofcorrelation (yellow arrow, Figure 2).

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