A collapsing north wall in Valles Marineris
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on July 17, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as an alluvial fan.
I have also seen them label this kind of avalanche as mass wasting, where the material moves down slope suddenly in a single mass.
The image shows the aftermath of such an event, after a large blob of material broke free from the mountainside and slid almost as a unit downhill to settle more than two miles away on the floor of the canyon. The distance traveled and the blobby nature of the flow both reveal how the lower Martian gravity changes the nature of such events, compared to what you might see on Earth. The flows can travel farther, and can hold together as a unit easier.
The overview map below not only provides the context, but it tells us that such events are remarkably common in this place.
The white cross marks the location of this landslide, in the easternmost point of Ganges Chasma. The red boxes indicate other photos taken by MRO’s high resolution camera. If you go here you can take a gander at each by clicking the arrow button in the top menu and then clicking on each red box.
If you do this, what you will find is that along the north wall of Ganges Chasma, especially in the area where today’s cool image is located, there are many similar mass wasting events. This canyon wall is slowly growing, as its north cliff retreats backwards with each landslide.
The decaying nature of this cliff suggests that the material has some fundamental structural weakness. The blobby nature of the events suggest the possibility of underground layers of ice, even though this is in the dry equatorial regions at 8 degrees south latitude. It could even be that the scientists who are requesting these images are looking for exactly that. To identify such ice layers will require analysis of the full resolution images, which are in a different format and require different software to view, as well as the radar data taken by both MRO and Mars Express.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on July 17, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as an alluvial fan.
I have also seen them label this kind of avalanche as mass wasting, where the material moves down slope suddenly in a single mass.
The image shows the aftermath of such an event, after a large blob of material broke free from the mountainside and slid almost as a unit downhill to settle more than two miles away on the floor of the canyon. The distance traveled and the blobby nature of the flow both reveal how the lower Martian gravity changes the nature of such events, compared to what you might see on Earth. The flows can travel farther, and can hold together as a unit easier.
The overview map below not only provides the context, but it tells us that such events are remarkably common in this place.
The white cross marks the location of this landslide, in the easternmost point of Ganges Chasma. The red boxes indicate other photos taken by MRO’s high resolution camera. If you go here you can take a gander at each by clicking the arrow button in the top menu and then clicking on each red box.
If you do this, what you will find is that along the north wall of Ganges Chasma, especially in the area where today’s cool image is located, there are many similar mass wasting events. This canyon wall is slowly growing, as its north cliff retreats backwards with each landslide.
The decaying nature of this cliff suggests that the material has some fundamental structural weakness. The blobby nature of the events suggest the possibility of underground layers of ice, even though this is in the dry equatorial regions at 8 degrees south latitude. It could even be that the scientists who are requesting these images are looking for exactly that. To identify such ice layers will require analysis of the full resolution images, which are in a different format and require different software to view, as well as the radar data taken by both MRO and Mars Express.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It seems to me that if it is from melting ice, seismic activity might not be required. If not, these events happen by Mars quacks.
Reminds me of some large earthly slides, likely Pleistocene, where a chunk of mountainside (probably saturated and possibly seismically induced) collapsed onto the adjacent alluvial apron. The one I’m most familiar with is the Blackhawk Landslide, on the north slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains in California. A LIDAR image would have similar features to this image. By the way, I’d love to hear a “Mars quack”!