Sol 1702-04, May 22, 2017, update by MSL scientist The rover planners parked us in front of the one slab of outcrop – an island among ripples of sand – we could safely drive to from our Sol 1700 position, setting us up to continue our exploration of the Murray formation.
The outcrop slab exhibited color variations (gray, pink and orange) and patchy white veins, so to capture these variations the science team analyzed multiple spots on the outcrop with MAHLI, APXS, ChemCam and Mastcam. We brushed dust off the target “Fern Spring” with the DRT and analyzed two separate spots within this dust-cleared area with APXS. Getting two closely spaced APXS targets makes it easier to pull apart compositional variations within the outcrop than a single APXS analysis alone. We planned a ChemCam raster over Fern Spring to be able to compare the compositional results from APXS and ChemCam, and a second, similar target, “Redfield Hill” to maximize the amount of data from the bedrock. [More at link]