The NASA rover team had assessed the rock to be a suitable target for one of the first uses of Curiosity's contact instruments, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and the Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS). The rock is dark gray and seems to contain grains or crystals, if any at all, that are finer than Curiosity's cameras can resolve: less than 80 μm in size.