Figure 9. Portion of a Mastcam color mosaic showing the scuff
generated by the left front wheel in the Sands of Forvie. The sand is
slightly cohesive and exhibits a reddish tint. Data acquired on Sol 2995
during Curiosity ’s Sands of Forvie campaign. Note the presence of
relatively bright grains in the scuffed sands, and the darker, bluer,
coarser grains along this large ripple crest and flank. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
One of the considerations for Curiosity ’s measurement campaigns
for both sand deposits is that rover activities were accomplished at
their margins. This was a consequence of the rover’s mobility being
highly limited in deep sands (Arvidson et al., 2016a). Given that the
local bedrock adjacent to the sand deposits is relatively friable and
produces a fine-grained regolith (e.g., Weitz et al., 2022), we
investigated the extent of the contributions of sand grains weathered
from local bedrock on the composition of the margin sand deposits.Curiosity acquired a pair of APXS measurements on the Fleurac
sand targets located just to the north of the SoF. The APXS instrument
fields of view (FOV) were offset by approximately two FOV radii (i.e.,
~2 cm; VanBommel et al., 2016), with each containing a
mixture of sand and blocky material disrupted from bedrock deposits
(Figure 10).