"Feeling" Mars Dirt: High resolution Maps

[Live from Earth and Mars]

Viking Soils: High resolution maps

Maps that locate and name many of the rocks, the trenches dug by the soil sampler, and diagram the lander and its major components are linked below and available by ftp. These maps are so large and have such high resolution, e.g., VL-2 which is a 6380 by 4568 tiff, that even using a 1280 by 1024 display, they are very indistinct. However, by using image processing software such as xv, or others, portions can be cropped and expanded to read the names of rocks and produce high quality prints of interesting areas with lower resolution printers. High resolution printers can produce excellent copies. These maps may be replaced by others having less detail but contain most of the interesting features.

These maps are included in the extensive U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1389, "Physical Properties of the Surface Materials at the Viking Landing Sites on Mars", H. J. Moore, R. E. Hutton, G. D. Glow and C. R. Spitzer, 1987, available from the U. S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington D. C. To the extent we are able, we will provide 8 by 10 copies ( and possibly larger ones) to teachers, resources permitting. Please formulate your request by clicking on the Copyright symbol, selecting the mailing list, and making your request, being certain to give the complete school mailing address. Please include an e-mail address in case these become available form another source. They are far better acquired by anonymous ftp at the site:

ftp.atmos.washington.edu

After providing a user name of "anonymous" and the password in the required form, go to the proper directory by the command:

cd mars/soils/viking/

and use the "ftp" protocol to acquire:
V_L_1_End_EXT_600_BW.TIF (482416 bytes), a 6556 by 5094 tiff or
V_2_End_Extended_600_bw.tiff (496334 bytes), a 6380 by 4568 tiff

Warning,

Do not click on the links below unless you have a very fast link, a large memory and a capable system. The biggest, fastest workstations take about 30 seconds to ingest and display them with a 10,000,000 bit/second Ethernet connection.

We will be replacing these with better, smaller maps in the near future (after 96/12/30). If you need hard copies, please contact James E. Tillman.

Lander 1 Sample Field Map [Bit Map: 3.98 MBytes]
Lander 2 Sample Field Map [Bit Map: 3.48 MBytes]