Trench Reveals Two Faces of Soils
Jet Propulsion Laboratory https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ April 28, 2004
This approximate true-color image mosaic from the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a trench dug by the rover in the vicinity of the "Anatolia" region. Two imprints from the rover's Moessbauer spectrometer instrument were left in the exposed soils. Detailed comparisons between soils exposed at the surface and those found at depth reveal that surface soils have higher levels of hematite while subsurface soils show fine particles derived from basalt. The trench is approximately 11 centimeters deep. This image was taken on sol 81 with the panoramic camera's 430-, 530- and 750-nanometer filters.