Desiccation cracks provide evidence of lake drying on Mars, Sutton Island member, Murray formation, Gale crater: Reply

Abstract

We thank Pratt (2018) for his Comment on our paper (Stein et al., 2018) concerning the formation of a polygonal network of sandstone cracks in mudstone slabs in the Sutton Island member of the Murray formation investigated by the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater, Mars. Pratt proposes an additional potential formation mechanism for the generation and filling of the cracks not explicitly addressed by us, which is that they are dewatering features resulting from the liquefaction and injection of sediment into fissures due to seismic shock.

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