Deep inside the youngest flood lava event on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! Today we return to the Athabasca Valles flood lava event, believed to be the youngest major lava event on Mars that I highlighted in a cool image last week.
Then, I showed two meandering lava flows near the edge of this Great Britain-sized flood lava plain, produced 600 million years ago in only a matter of weeks. Today, we take a look deep within the lava plain. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on May 6, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “a lava-crater interaction.”
In plain English, we are looking at a crater that has been inundated by the flood lava, filling it.
The white dot in the middle of the western flow of the Athabasca flood lava on the overview map to the right marks the location of this filled crater. Unlike last week’s image, there are no obvious meandering flows here. Instead, it is like we are looking at a frozen sea of lava that was so thick that it covered everything evenly.
A close look at the crater however reveals something fascinating. It appears that the flood lava inside the crater sits at a higher elevation than the flood lava outside the crater. This difference suggests that the flood was originally higher, filled the crater to its present level, and then before it froze it subsided slightly. The rim of the crater however prevented the lava from draining out below a certain point, thus holding the lava inside the crater at a higher level.
The terraces around that small peak inside the crater are further evidence of that once higher level.
In the more than half billion years since, the flood lava has experienced significant erosion, indicated by the flaked and stucco roughness of its surface.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full image.
Cool image time! Today we return to the Athabasca Valles flood lava event, believed to be the youngest major lava event on Mars that I highlighted in a cool image last week.
Then, I showed two meandering lava flows near the edge of this Great Britain-sized flood lava plain, produced 600 million years ago in only a matter of weeks. Today, we take a look deep within the lava plain. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on May 6, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “a lava-crater interaction.”
In plain English, we are looking at a crater that has been inundated by the flood lava, filling it.
The white dot in the middle of the western flow of the Athabasca flood lava on the overview map to the right marks the location of this filled crater. Unlike last week’s image, there are no obvious meandering flows here. Instead, it is like we are looking at a frozen sea of lava that was so thick that it covered everything evenly.
A close look at the crater however reveals something fascinating. It appears that the flood lava inside the crater sits at a higher elevation than the flood lava outside the crater. This difference suggests that the flood was originally higher, filled the crater to its present level, and then before it froze it subsided slightly. The rim of the crater however prevented the lava from draining out below a certain point, thus holding the lava inside the crater at a higher level.
The terraces around that small peak inside the crater are further evidence of that once higher level.
In the more than half billion years since, the flood lava has experienced significant erosion, indicated by the flaked and stucco roughness of its surface.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Very interesting. Thanks for posting — for your whole series on Mars.