Ray Arvidson Quotations

We are also interested in looking at the soils and rocks exposed during impact and making imaging and other measurements of these materials. This latter set of experiments will allow us to probe subsurface characteristics.

It was having a tough time because of the loose nature of the material.

The rocks in the Columbia Hills are nothing like the basalt on the plains. Water was involved in practically every one that we've seen so far.

The rocks in the Columbia Hills are nothing like the basalt on the plains, ... Water was involved in practically every one that we've seen so far.

It all pretty much says Mars was a place, particularly early in time, where liquid water was abundant at or close to the surface.

We're curious to see whether or not the rocks, in fact, are tilted to the south. So far, we have seen them largely tilted to the north. That is going to tell us about the structure and a little bit more about the evolution of the Columbia Hills. And also whether or not the variety of the rocks that we've seen so far continues to increase.

Water was involved in practically every one we have seen so far.

We're finding abundant evidence for alteration of rocks in a water environment. What we want to do is figure out which layers were on top of which other layers. To do that it has been helpful to keep climbing for good views of how the layers are tilted to varying degrees. Understanding the sequence of layers is equivalent to having a deep drill core from drilling beneath the plains.

We're finding abundant evidence for alteration of rocks in a water environment.

I wouldn't be surprised as we move uphill that we find a section of the rock, in fact, that was modified in a shallow open-water environment. We haven't found the smoking-gun evidence for that yet.