Alternating dark and light terraces inside Valles Marineris
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 9, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what appear to be the somewhat typical terrain at this location, in a part of the giant Martian canyon Valles Marineris dubbed West Candor Chasma. For example, I featured similar swirls in August 2022 at a place only about six miles to the east, that spot indicated by the green dot on the overview map above. The white dot marks the location of today’s image.
So, what are we looking at? The elevation drop from the high and low points is only about 180 feet, but in that short distance it appears there are more than two dozen visible layers, and those layers form terraces that alternate between bright and dark material.
The shape of the swirls also suggest that a flow of some kind, either water, ice, or wind, moved from the northwest to the southeast, carving these terraces as it descended the stair steps downward. It is also just as likely that we are seeing repeated lava flows going downhill to the southeast, each even laying another layer on top of the preceeding one. And it is also possible that we are looking at a combination of both.
The alternating dark and light layers suggest that each dark layer was an event that put down dark material, such as volcanic dust, that was subsequently covered with light material, with this process repeating itself many times over the eons.
That the floor of this part of Valles Marineris is uniquely covered in this manner is in itself intriguing. Why here, and not elsewhere within the canyon?
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 9, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what appear to be the somewhat typical terrain at this location, in a part of the giant Martian canyon Valles Marineris dubbed West Candor Chasma. For example, I featured similar swirls in August 2022 at a place only about six miles to the east, that spot indicated by the green dot on the overview map above. The white dot marks the location of today’s image.
So, what are we looking at? The elevation drop from the high and low points is only about 180 feet, but in that short distance it appears there are more than two dozen visible layers, and those layers form terraces that alternate between bright and dark material.
The shape of the swirls also suggest that a flow of some kind, either water, ice, or wind, moved from the northwest to the southeast, carving these terraces as it descended the stair steps downward. It is also just as likely that we are seeing repeated lava flows going downhill to the southeast, each even laying another layer on top of the preceeding one. And it is also possible that we are looking at a combination of both.
The alternating dark and light layers suggest that each dark layer was an event that put down dark material, such as volcanic dust, that was subsequently covered with light material, with this process repeating itself many times over the eons.
That the floor of this part of Valles Marineris is uniquely covered in this manner is in itself intriguing. Why here, and not elsewhere within the canyon?
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
How likely is it that the dark layers simply consist of blown in fines and gravelly debris? The dunes seem to be of the same “color”, or at least a similar shade.
This site would be far up my list of Places To Hike on Mars.