Martian rootless cones
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 8, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The camera team labeled this picture simply “Rootless Cones,” which is a feature that is created when the lava that covers the surface is thin, allowing the heated material below (which is not lava) to burst upward, producing the cone and caldera. If you look at the full image you will see other similar clusters of cones scattered about on this very flat and featureless plain. Apparently, the material that this lava plain covered had several similar bursts in a number of areas.
Such cones in this particular lava field are not rare, and in fact are evidence that this particular field is young.
The white dot inside the Athabasca Valles flood lava plain, near the top left of the overview map to the right, marks this location. Some scientists have proposed [pdf] that Athabasca is the youngest large lava flood plain on Mars, covering an area about the size of Great Britain in only a few weeks at most. Its lava flowed out from its main vent in the northeast to the southwest, and then split into two flows, one heading southeast and the other heading west. This particular location is near the westernmost reaches of that western flow. Here the lava ponded and hardened as this flat plain. Before it hardened however its heat apparently caused the bursts that formed these cones.
I suspect that these rootless cones are the kind of lava feature that quickly erodes. Their sharp freshness here reinforces the theory that Athabasca is young.
What I find interesting is the resemblance these cones have to the theorized mud cones in the northern lowland plains. There, it is believed the near-surface ice caused a mud volcano, producing the cone. Here, there is no ice, as Athabasca is near the equator in the dry equatorial regions of Mars. Yet, both liquid processes appear to produce similar features on Mars.
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 original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 8, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The camera team labeled this picture simply “Rootless Cones,” which is a feature that is created when the lava that covers the surface is thin, allowing the heated material below (which is not lava) to burst upward, producing the cone and caldera. If you look at the full image you will see other similar clusters of cones scattered about on this very flat and featureless plain. Apparently, the material that this lava plain covered had several similar bursts in a number of areas.
Such cones in this particular lava field are not rare, and in fact are evidence that this particular field is young.
The white dot inside the Athabasca Valles flood lava plain, near the top left of the overview map to the right, marks this location. Some scientists have proposed [pdf] that Athabasca is the youngest large lava flood plain on Mars, covering an area about the size of Great Britain in only a few weeks at most. Its lava flowed out from its main vent in the northeast to the southwest, and then split into two flows, one heading southeast and the other heading west. This particular location is near the westernmost reaches of that western flow. Here the lava ponded and hardened as this flat plain. Before it hardened however its heat apparently caused the bursts that formed these cones.
I suspect that these rootless cones are the kind of lava feature that quickly erodes. Their sharp freshness here reinforces the theory that Athabasca is young.
What I find interesting is the resemblance these cones have to the theorized mud cones in the northern lowland plains. There, it is believed the near-surface ice caused a mud volcano, producing the cone. Here, there is no ice, as Athabasca is near the equator in the dry equatorial regions of Mars. Yet, both liquid processes appear to produce similar features on Mars.
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
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