Surface Dust Coverages on Rock Targets in Gale Crater: Influence of Elevation, Proximity to Aeolian Sand Fields and Seasonality
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Martian dust is mobilized throughout the year by local, regional, and global dust storms, influencing atmospheric opacity and inhibiting observations of the surface. Using Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images and methods of Schmidt et al. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1029/2018je005553 , areal dust coverages on 368 near‐horizontal, undisturbed rock surfaces were estimated along six Mars Years of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover's geologic traverse from mission sols 46–3,409, corresponding to Mars Year 31 (MY#; Clancy et al., 2000, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999JE001089 ), areocentric solar longitude (Ls) 175.9° through MY36, Ls 177.6°. Targets were evaluated for potential geospatial and seasonal (Ls) correlations. Dust coverages increased at each spring equinox (Ls = 0°) with the highest coverage (76.6%) recorded at the top of Vera Rubin Ridge (VRR) prior to the Mars Year 34 (MY34) global dust storm. Dust coverages annually decreased as prevailing wind strengths in the Gale crater increased during southern summer. Following the ascent of VRR, New Year maximums have decreased by approximately 15% annually (MY35 60.7%, and MY36 52.8%), suggesting that dust is less abundant at higher elevations on Mount Sharp, and/or that dust suspension or removal is enhanced at higher elevations by stronger winds at higher elevations. Two regions with relatively low dust coverages (<20%) were found in proximity to active aeolian sand dunes and are interpreted to result from saltating sand particles striking and lofting dust particles. This research represents the single longest recording of surface dust deposits to date for landed missions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".