PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA19927: Light Material Ripped Up Older Dark Vein Material
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
 Spacecraft:  Curiosity
 Instrument:  MAHLI
 Product Size:  570 x 451 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Malin Space Science Systems
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA19927.tif (771.7 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA19927.jpg (55.89 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a combination of dark and light material within a mineral vein at a site called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.

The image was taken on April 4, 2015, during the 946th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. The area shown is roughly 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) wide.

Differences in textures of light-toned veins in the Garden City complex of crisscrossing mineral veins are clues that these veins may result from distinct fluid events. This example shows where a later addition of light-toned material into a vein ripped up prior dark material, suggesting both high fluid pressure and potentially explosive release of high pressures. Different examples are at PIA19925 and PIA19926.

Mineral veins often form where fluids move through fractured rocks, depositing minerals in the fractures and affecting chemistry of the surrounding rock. At Garden City, the veins have been more resistant to erosion than the surrounding host rock. The fluid movement through fractures at Garden City occurred later than wet environmental conditions in which the host rock formed, before it hardened and cracked.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates MAHLI. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Image Addition Date:
2015-11-11