This image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows inclined layering known as cross-bedding in an outcrop called "Shaler" on a scale of a few tenths of meters, or decimeters (1 decimeter is nearly 4 inches). The superimposed scale bar is 50 centimeters (19.7 inches). Decimeter-scale cross-bedding in the Shaler Unit is indicative of sediment transport in stream flows. Currents mold the sediments into small underwater dunes that migrate downstream. When exposed in cross-section, evidence of this migration is preserved as strata that are steeply inclined relative to the horizontal -- thus the term "cross-bedding." The grain sizes here are coarse enough to exclude wind transport. This cross-bedding occurs stratigraphically above the Gillespie Unit in the "Yellowknife Bay" area of Mars' Gale Crater, and is therefore geologically younger. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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