Each year NASA sends groups of teams to the Desert to test equipment and techniques which may be useful for extraterretrial exploration. In April 2010 I got to go to the San Francisco Volcanic field to take Gigapan photos of potential exploration sites for that summer's DRATS tests.

I met with Brian Monteleone, a Geologist at Arizona State. We looked at the geologic One of the goals of the tests is to see what can be learned about a location using just the tools available to us for extra planetary exploration. Brian and I played this role, looking at the location (mostly) with fresh eyes.

The night before Brian and I met in Flagstaf and looked at maps to create a plan of attack. I loaded our plan into two GPS units
(click for larger view) Download a KML file including our plan, and the reality of what we really did.

The black cone with the flow erupting out of the north side was referred to as VC2 on one of our maps, and the flow is referred to as VF2. This is SP Crater. According to Wikipedia the crater was referred to as Shit Pot Crater in the 1880's, but that name offended the delicate mapmakers sensibilities and so it is SP Crater. To quote the wisdom of crowds "When viewed from certain angles on the ground, the combination of the smooth round shape of the cone, the dark lava spatter on the rim, and the long dark lava flow extruding from the base do indeed resemble a toilet catastrophe."

I learned that planning a geology field trip is like eveything else. In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there can be a huge difference. Since we were pretending to be uninformed, naive, observers we spent time questioning the obvious things. For example, it is pretty obvious that VF2 comes from VC2. Except, it isn't really obvious. When learning a new language you learn to appreciate your real friends, the genuine cognates. But you need to be wary of your false friends, the false cognates which looks the same, or similar, but have different meanings. And Geology is filled with false friends, formations which could inspire Yeats, turning in widening gyres, centres falling apart, lava tides loosed to drown innocent base layers...etc :-)

(Sometimes false friends can be inverted...based on the 'toilet catastrophe' naming inspiration we could, perhaps refer to SP as a Gross volcano, but if we use the German false cognate we get 'SP ist ein großer Vulkan,' and SP is pretty large.)

In the interests of full disclosure, here is an only lightly edited version of our original plan.

Initial Plan

Target Zone 1 - contact between vc2 and vf2

Also, we want to look on vc2 for any features which are diagnostic of cones

Features to look for and attempt to document:
scoria - Basalt flow sometimes have vessicle, air bubbles, which are caused by gas releases from the rock. Scoria are shot through with these holes - almost like pumice, extremely light. We could attempt to document this feature by seeing fields of rocks with tiny holes - like looking at a bathroom sponge. We would need a very close up view for this.

Some of these types of volcanos have radial dyke features from the center. We could document these by imaging the whole cone of vc2.

Gigapans for here:

• vc2 cone from base.
• -contact zones
• -extreme close up of suspected scoria or other rocks
• -anything different about the cone which we don't see in the flow.
• -climb to the edge of the cone and image down into the cone, and of the whole site.
• -lots of age relationships.

And another old cone to the west.

Hopefully we can see these contacts readily. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Target Zone 2 - Dimple like features on vc1

This is an older cone unit. We are curious about the 'dimple' like structures.

Proposed Gigapans:

• from near the road due North, then walk toward this Target and capture the dimples and any other interesting features.

Target Zone 3 - Possible Fluvial Zone

We should be able to see this from the road, possibly walk into it, or from the road.

Goal:

• Capture an image from which we can determine if this is a fluvial zone.

Target Zone 4 - What are these big black things?

Are they big bombs?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Target Zone 5

Lots of contact relationships here -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Target Zone 6

More contact relationships. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Target Zone 7 - Rim of Colton (I think)

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Target Zone 1 - SP Crater

And a closer view. For scale, it is about 0.25 km from the road, to the base of the cone.

Straight out we were able to capture a GigaPan on the edge of the contact between cone and flow. Note surface pattern of cracking on the rocks. Also there is Scoria, a highly vesicular volcanic rock (vesicular means there are many cavities, or vesicules). This is from the Northern flank of SP Crater, near to where an apparent alluvial layer flaking off of the cone contacts a major flow.
(click to view 1.3 gigapixel version on Gigapan.org) After capturing that image we worked our way about 65 meters up the cone. Standing on the base of the northern part of the SP crater, facing northward looking at the basaltic flow off of the crater.
(click to view 1.27 gigapixel version on Gigapan.org)

The goal of this image is to show the continuity between the flow and the crater. And the wind is so hard that I had to hold the tripod with one hand, and while I was recording notes my netbook was literally blown out of my lap and thrown six feet. The wind is from the west, left in the image.

This flow is continuous with this cone. You can see no break between the rock types in the flow and in this cone. This was not obvious from the map.

The gigapan also shows the full extent of the flow. All of the dark brown outcroppings throughout the photo appear to be one continuous unit, that can be traced in the photos.

The wind lifted the gigapan a few inches off one leg 2/3rds of the way through the photo. (there is a slight artifact on the top of the image, probably from this.

The mounded areas, the outcroppings which stick up in the flat areas are for now of unknown origin. We don't know where they belong. For example, to the right the outcropping just left of the road.

What we need to do in terms of a working field geologist 'what do I need to figure out" we know we have an extensive prominent flow unit we can trace. But we have smaller out croppings which is something else which is probably volcanic. We need to see if we can determine the age relationships between the outcroppings and this prominent flow.

Two things to show:

1. that this flow is continuous with this cone. You can see no break between the rock types in the flow and in this cone. This was not obvious from the map. (I thought it was not the case).

2. A good aerial of the extent of the flow unit. you may be able to trace the boundary of the flow unit as well as we know based on what is uncovered.

This is 10 meters down slope from G2. Showing details of the talus slope on SP.
(click to view 0.69 gigapixel version on Gigapan.org)

Showing various sized rocks and variability in vessicularty of rocks. Basically some rocks have a lot of holes, like scoria, and others don't. Also showing one piece that looks like an outer part of the flow , and some pieces showing evidence of welding, with scoria landing on partially cooled flow and bonding to that flow. Twenty five meters due North, into the flow area, we captured this image.

April 2010 Recon: (G34)

(View 0 gigapixel image on GigaPan.org)

Interjection of reality

(click for larger view)