Excerpt from Apollo 16 Lunar Surface Journal Geology Station 4 at the Stone Mountain Cincos Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright 1997 by Eric M. Jones. Last revised 19 July 2011. Source is the public website: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/a16.sta4.html 144:24:38 Young: (Looking toward the south) Yeah. It's an old 10-meter crater; it's really an old one. These other rocks around here might have been caused by this sec(ondary)...Matter of fact, this might of...No, I don't think so. I think these rocks were laid in here when South Ray came in. (Pause) (Reading CDR-9) "Sampling." [John will now collect samples while Charlie uses a device called the penetrometer to determine various mechanical properties of the soil. The instrument is shown in Figure 8-1 in the Preliminary Science Report and consists of a reference plate which Charlie presses on the ground and then pushes a rod through the plate into the soil. The rod can be fitted with cone-shaped tips of various sizes and, as he pushes, the force he has to use is recorded on a drum. Charlie's next transmission suggests that he was supposed to make measurements on one of benches seen in pre-mission overhead photos of Stone Mountain and then on the slopes on either side of the bench.] 144:24:59 Duke: Okay, Tony. On the penetrometer, it's benched. We'll call this crater "the bench" if you want to, and I'll get one uphill, one downhill, and two in the bottom of the crater. How does that sound? 144:25:13 England: Okay, that sounds good to us. 144:25:19 Duke: Okay, and I'll start with a 0.5 (cone size). 144:25:20 England: Okay. [John gets the gnomon from the rake site and goes off-camera to the right. Charlie is at the back of the Rover and is probably assembling the penetrometer.] 144:25:29 Duke: John, I'm glad we got those two core tubes. I think the other two fell off back at the LM. 144:25:35 Young: Okay. 144:25:37 Duke: I don't think I ever put those back in your bag. Did I? Well, we'll see; we got plenty. (Pause) 144:25:57 Young: I'm looking at a rock here, Houston, that is a very angular rock, and it has white clasts (and) it has a brecciated appearance. I'll take a picture of it and sample it for you. [John takes a series of four "before" pictures of the sample. Frames AS16-107- 17451 and 17452 are a cross-Sun stereopair while 17453 and 17454 are a down-Sun stereopair.] 144:26:24 Duke: Okay, I'm going to take my camera off to do this (penetrometer task). [Charlie goes off-camera to the left so he can put his camera on the LMP seat.] 144:26:33 Duke: Boy, this is so neat. Ha! Man, am I having a good time. [Fendell pans left and finds Charlie; but Charlie promptly goes off-camera to the right. Fendell follows.] 144:26:41 England: Charlie, we are, too. (Pause) And while you're bouncing around there, you might keep an eye out for a nearby crater that looks like it may have pulled up some local material. [Pre-mission thinking about the Apollo 16 site suggested that the Stone Mountain bedrock was different from the rock underlying the Cayley Plains. As mentioned previously, there were expectations that John and Charlie would find volcanic rocks on the mountain and what Houston is looking for, here, is a fresh crater large enough to have dug down into that bedrock. Although it was not known beforehand whether or not there would be significant amounts of South Ray ejecta on the mountain side, John and Charlie have been unequivocal in their statements that there are, indeed, many pieces of South Ray ejecta present.] [Fendell finds Charlie at the back of the Rover, still assembling the penetrometer.] 144:27:04 Duke: Now, we can't walk very far, Tony. Video Clip ( 2 min 58 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPEG ) 144:27:07 England: Understand. (Pause) [Charlie slides the reference plate toward the tip of the penetrometer rod.] 144:27:12 Duke: Oh, rats. 144:27:14 Young: What's the matter, Charlie? 144:27:19 Duke: I had the 0.5 cone in here, and when I pulled it, I pulled it out, and it came out like it was supposed to. And then I started moving the thing down and it fell off. (Pause) (I don't know) what to do about that. (Long Pause) [John approaches the back of the Rover.] 144:28:07 Duke: John, don't walk right over here. That cone is over there, and I want to get it out. 144:28:14 Young: Hand me a set of tongs, too, will you? 144:28:16 Duke: (Handing a set of tongs to John) Okay, here you go. (Pause) 144:28:22 Young: Okay. Once you get it out, can you put it back on? 144:28:24 Duke: Well, I'll bring it over to you, and if you'll hold it for me, I think I can. (Long Pause) [Charlie gets the other set of tongs off the back of the Rover. The area where he dropped the penetrometer cone is hidden from view by the Rover, but we can see that he uses the tongs to get the cone and then raises the tongs high enough that John can grab the cone.] [Jones - "This is the first time that either of you has used the tongs. Did your start to use them here because of the slope or the number of rocks? You'll use them pretty regularly from now on."] [Duke - "I guess it was just time (to start using them). And I dropped that penetrometer head on to the ground and tongs were perfect to pick that up; so we broke those out. And John was over sampling by himself and so he decided he needed a set. So we started using them at this point."] 144:28:50 Duke: How about whacking it on here, and see if you can get some of the dirt out of the bottom of it? Dadgum thing is not supposed to come out of there without being locked. My penetrometer is around here; wait a minute. 144:28:59 Young: Okay. (Pause) [Charlie circles behind John and goes to the CDR seat where, at some point, he had put the penetrometer.] 144:29:05 Duke: Okay. 144:29:08 Young: Don't step right there, Charlie. Here's a glass splatter. 144:29:12 Duke: Oh, yeah. I see it. A whole big bubble of it, isn't it? 144:29:16 Young: Yeah. [John and Charlie are near the left rear fender as they work on the penetrometer. John was facing north while he described the glass splatter.] 144:29:18 Duke: Is that on? Yeah, that got it. Thank you. Beautiful. Okay. 144:29:25 Young: I'm going to grab sample this scrap...this glass splatter behind the Rover, Houston. 144:29:33 Duke: Good. Hey, Tony...John, if you see it, there's one under that rock. Is that the one you're talking about? 144:29:40 Young: Yeah. 144:29:41 Duke: Okay. [John's cross-Sun 'befores' of the glass splatter are AS16-107- 17455 and 17456. Note that he has planted his tongs while he takes the picture and gets a sample bag ready. He is working at the back of the Rover near the right rear wheel.] [Charlie re-positions the reference plate on the penetrometer and goes off-camera to the right.] 144:29:42 Duke: Tony, can I start on number 5 on the penetrometer? 144:29:44 England: Okay, that's fine. 144:29:49 Duke: Okay. I'm going up out of this crater, up on the top part of it. Video Clip ( 2 min 52 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 25 Mb MPEG ) 144:29:57 Young: And that's going into bag 397, Houston. 144:30:00 England: Okay, 397. [This is sample 64455 a 57 gram "glass-coated metaclastic" rock.] [Fendell starts panning counter-clockwise.] 144:30:05 Duke: Tony, you just can't believe that South Ray Crater. It is perfectly (looking for the right word) cylindrical - circular. And it's amazing. It's just really apparent that we got two types of rocks there. [As shown in Figure 18 from USGS Professional Paper 1048, the South Ray impact may have penetrated, first, a 10 to 15 meter layer of regolith, then a 50 to 60 meter layer of dark breccia, and, finally, a layer of light-colored rock, possibly an old layer of impact melt.] 144:30:05 Duke: Okay, I'm up on the side now, starting with 5. And we're pushing it in. (Long Pause; Exhales sharply) Okay. That's as far as it's gonna go, Tony. And it went to half...(correcting himself) about three-quarters of the way up to the red mark. 144:31:08 England: Okay. (Pause) Okay. (Pause) We'd like you to... 144:31:16 Duke: (Lost under Tony) going back down in the flat part. 144:31:18 England: ...change to two tenths. 144:31:22 Duke: Okay. [Fendell finds Charlie south of the Rover. He is well above the Rover and, apparently, has just started running downslope on the way back from his first measurement site. He moves easily using his skipping stride.] [Jones - "Did you feel that you had good stability?"] [Duke - "Yeah; that was the most comfortable (stride) for me."] 144:31:23 Duke: And, Tony, when you push on the thing, you can't push with a very smooth force, and you're gonna see some spikes on the recording, I'm sure. 144:31:40 England: Okay. We understand that. That's fine, Charlie. [Fendell pans to follow Charlie but stops when John comes into view. John is using the tongs to collect a number of small rocks. Although he has his back to us, it is evident that he has a sample bag in his left hand and is having no trouble putting the rocks in with the scoop.] 144:31:45 Duke: And if you want my opinion on the thing, I don't think we're hitting hard ground. I think what I did is probably hit a rock, and I should have probably moved this thing over a little bit. 144:31:59 England: Okay. We'll just go with the 0.2 and see how that does. 144:32:04 Duke: Okay. (Pause) [During the preceding conversation between Charlie and Tony, John used to tongs to tip a hand-sized rock upright so he could get the tongs around a narrow dimension of the rock. He then raised it without difficulty.] [The Rover moves, probably because Charlie is changing tips on the penetrometer.] [John takes a couple of steps backward as he seals the sample bag. This suggests a high level of confidence in his ability to move around this rock-strewn area.] MP3 Audio Clip ( 9 min 52 sec ) 144:32:15 Young: Okay, Houston. I'm sampling independently, and I've got four samples in bag 398. They're so dust covered that I can't tell anything about them. 144:32:24 England: Okay; understand. 144:32:25 Young: But I suspect...They're lying by this big rock, and they may be the same kind of rock. [Frame AS16-107- 17457 may be an "after" of this sample site. The samples are 64475 to 64478, of which 64475 is the largest, a 1.03 kg breccia. As shown in Figures 41b and 41c from USGS Professional Paper 1048, these samples have been identified in AS16-107- 17453 and 17454, which are the down-Sun'befores' John took of the angular rock he collected at 144:25:57.] [Charlie comes into view with the penetrometer and John heads for the LMP's side of the Rover.] 144:32:36 Young: Charlie, I'm going to get that bag (meaning a spare SCB) out from underneath your seat and put the samples in there. Video Clip ( 3 min 36 sec 0.9 Mb RealVideo or 32 Mb MPEG ) 144:32:39 Duke: Okay. You know, John, with all these rocks here, I'm not sure we're getting Descartes. 144:32:47 Young: That's right. I'm not either. 144:32:48 Duke: We ought to go down to a crater without any rocks. (Pause) [Charlie is suggesting that craters with significant numbers of surface rocks on this part of Stone Mountain have been dug by South Ray ejecta and that they want to find a crater without rocks in hope that the South Ray contamination will be less.] [During the mission review, Charlie commented on the fact that the Apollo crews visited only six sites of the Moon and that none of the crews had time to do a definitive of even those small areas.] [Duke - "Trying to figure out the Moon with what we're doing in Apollo is like having one drop of water to study out of the whole Pacific Ocean, really."] [Jones - "Just a few clues and hints to the general picture."] [Charlie turns his back to the Rover and, as Fendell gets him centered, he pushes the penetrometer into the ground with his left hand. Gradually, he sinks to his knees and then bounds forward to regain his balance. Only the recording drum is above the surface.] 144:32:59 England: And, Charlie, you're on the big eye. We're watching. 144:33:01 Duke: Okay, the two-tenths...(Stops to listen) The two-tenths...You see that? The 0.2 went all the way in. 144:33:07 England: We understand. Can you tell how far it stroked up on the pressure? Do you think it reached the hilt? 144:33:16 Duke: No, it was very light pressure, frankly. (Pause) [Charlie bobs down onto his right knee, holds his position long enough to get the recording drum with his right hand, and pulls the penetrometer out of the ground as he rises and runs forward.] 144:33:22 Duke: Maybe it just depends on whether you hit a rock down there or not. This is really loosely consolidated. This regolith. Loosely packed. [Charlie pulls the reference plate down to the end of the rod.] 144:33:36 England: Okay. Was that (recording drum) index on 6? 144:33:41 Duke: That's affirm. Going to 7. [Charlie adjusts the recording drum.] 144:33:48 Young: You don't mind if I put those bags in your seat, do you, Charlie? 144:33:51 Duke: Not a bit. [Charlie goes off-camera to the right and Fendell follows.] 144:33:55 Duke: Hey, turn the big eye up to the right, Tony, if you want to watch this other one. 144:34:02 England: Okay, we're coming around. (Pause) 144:34:12 Duke: This seems a little more firmly packed here. 144:34:15 England: Okay. (Pause) [Fendell finds Charlie as he gives the penetrometer a final push. About a half-meter of the rod is sticking out of the ground. The southern part of the South Ray ejecta blanket is in the background.] 144:34:23 Duke: Okay, that one bottomed out, now, at... 144:34:26 England: Good show. 144:34:28 Duke: Oh, it's up above the red mark. (Pause) [Charlie pulls the penetrometer out of the ground and shakes some dust off.] 144:34:34 Duke: And it got progressively harder (to push the penetrometer in). So I think that was a good reading. I don't think that was necessarily a rock down there. 144:34:42 England: Good show. We finally guessed right (on where to do the measurement). [Charlie resets the reference plate and the recording drum and moves off-camera to the right. Fendell follows.] 144:34:49 Duke: Okay. Going to (recording drum position) 8 and I'm going downslope. (Long Pause) 144:35:02 Duke: John, this crater over here looks like it might be - just downslope here - looks like it might be one of the Cincos, and it could be Descartes material, because it's just some little blocks around it. And there's some little blocks inside the rim, too. (Pause) [The size of ejecta fragments are largest near the rim of a crater and become smaller with distance. The blocks at this site which seem to be South Ray ejecta are of a certain size and Charlie is speculating that a crater showing only blocks of a noticeably smaller size might not be contaminated.] [As mentioned following 144:07:29, they are about 80 meters west of Cinco 'a'.] [As Charlie moves below the Rover, he angles across slope toward the northwest. Fendell is only able to keep Charlie's PLSS in view. He stops and Fendell is able to get him centered.] Movie Clip (0.8Mb; mov) 144:35:24 Duke: Okay. Here we go. [Charlie is facing up slope, with the penetrometer slightly above him. He leans forward and presses on the recording drum and, after encountering some resistance, he gets it in a few inches before it stops. He presses on the drum two more times, getting about half the rod into the ground in the process. He then gives a final push and the rod sinks all the way into the ground.] 144:35:31 Young: Okay, Houston. I'm digging an exploratory trench right here to see if the material is black. 144:35:41 England: Okay. We copy that, John. 144:35:43 Young: No, it's sure not. I mean the material is not white. It's just the same as it... [As the penetrometer sinks into the ground on Charlie's final push, he ends up balanced on his toes and his left hand, which is resting on the top of the drum. He tries to run uphill to get his feet under him but, after vigorously treading regolith for a few seconds, he gives up and falls forward onto his hands.] 144:35:51 Duke: Aghh, rats! (Pause) [Charlie pushes himself back and, once his torso is over his knees, he rises without difficulty.] 144:35:56 Duke: (To Tony) How'd you like that? 144:35:57 England: Beautiful maneuver there, Charlie. What do you do for an encore? 144:36:02 Duke: (Resting for a moment) Okay. This thing is...(Stops to listen) Okay. I went...(Laughs) I went down...That one bottomed out. Video Clip ( 3 min 13 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 29 Mb MPEG ) 144:36:10 England: Okay. We saw that. [While facing upslope, Charlie bobs down to his right knee and retrieves the penetrometer.] 144:36:12 Duke: But it went all the way in. I mean the force. 144:36:19 Young: Okay, Houston. I've gone down about (pause) a shovel width, and it's all the same material. And I don't see any layering in it or anything. 144:36:44 England: Okay. We understand that, John. [John takes a cross-Sun stereopair of his trench, AS16-107-17458 and 17459.] [Charlie moves upslope toward the back of the Rover and uses a slow, hopping sidestep. He advances the recording drum and then taps the penetrometer several times to loosen the dust he kicked onto it. Fendell follows.] [Duke - "I wasn't sinking in too far."] [Jones - "No. The toe on the uphill side isn't penetrating not more than an inch and a half."] 144:36:50 Duke: Okay. I've sequenced to number 9, and I'm stowing this beauty. 144:36:56 England: Okay. 144:37:01 Duke: And that one test, downhill, was on the steepest part.