We have a wide variety of problems and projects that are of importance to both the academic and the practical scholar. The common theme is Geomechanics—how rocks deform, and how you can tell the roles of stress, fluids, and other factors from the field relationships that you see and map out.

Our Group addresses key problems in (1) fracture and fault mechanics, (2) rock-mass mechanics, and (3) planetary structure and tectonics. Engineering fracture mechanics provides a powerful set of tools for solving important problems in diverse fields such as geological engineering, geomechanics, structural geology, tectonics, geophysics, and planetary science. This work utilizes approaches developed in traditionally separate specialties to attack these interrelated problems. Some of the areas we're looking into are:

• Displacement-length scaling relations in 3-D
• Mechanical development of deformation bands
• Slope stability analyses of huge canyon walls on Mars to reveal candidate lithologies using their rock mass strength characteristics
• Quantitative assessment of fault-population strains and cumulative work on Mars and other planetary bodies
• Mechanics of coupled blind thrust fault/flexural slip fold systems with applications to morphology and tectonics of planetary wrinkle ridges
• Strain localization and growth of deformation bands and faults in soft porous rocks on Earth and Mars

Sleep is secondary to Dr. Alfred McEwen and his HiRISE team. They are eager to see what their instrument is seeing from orbit around Mars. Scientists and engineers at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory are gearing up for the first test images of Mars taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. The camera team expects to begin receiving the images early Friday (March 24, 2006). The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be farther from Mars when the camera takes these test images than it will be when the mission's main science phase begins next fall, so the resolution of features in the images will not match what is anticipated later. However, this week's testing is the only planned use of the camera until the science phase begins. Stay tuned for the first test images!

Team members for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enjoy seeing the first Mars images from the camera, at the instrument's operations center on the University of Arizona campus, Tucson, early Friday, March 24, 2006. Standing, left to right: Eric Eliason, Alfred McEwen. Seated, top to bottom: Ingrid Dauber, Chris Schaller, Anjani Polit, Maria Banks

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