posted on Feb, 10 2008 @ 12:35 PM
reply to post by Stari
I don't know the name, but I remember that someone (I think it was Zorgon, but I am not sure. Edit: it was
spacedoubt) called it
"
desert varnish".
(The external links on the above Wikipedia article are related to Mars)
What I think happens is that the exposed areas (like the "figure"), being a better target for the wind blown sand, do not get that "varnish".
Also, you can see that those darker stones are on the border of the stone "slabs", so they are probably more recently exposed.
That photo shows what I think may be the remains of what made that small crater, the bluish-grey stones.
(As there are images from the L4, L5 and L6 filters, I made my version of a colour image of that small crater)
The white stones I think are what lies beneath the sand on that place. You can see that in the distance, on the crater rim, that white rocks appear
near the surface. I think that this rock is the result of the accretion of the ground materials during a previous era. Now covered with sand, rocks
and "blueberries", those whitish rocks only appear on crater rims (because the crater was created when the rock was already there, if that is the
case then older craters should not have this rock visible on their rims) and other places where the surface was broken for some reason.
In this case I think that a small meteor hit with enough energy to break that white rock, making a small crater, and some of the original meteor
material still lies there, as sometimes happens here on Earth.
[edit on 10/2/2008 by ArMaP]