Ancient Martian landslides
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 23, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The image was labeled “Landslides in Orson Welles Crater” because the full photo shows at least two large and obvious slides, with the biggest shown to the right.
These avalanches are likely ancient because both have craters on them suggesting the material has not moved for a very long time. Yet when both flowed they did so almost like mud, the material moving downhill almost in a single blobby mass. Both have this look, as do many Martian landslides, which I think is why the scientists usually label them mass wasting events.
The white dot in 77-mile-wide Orson Welles Crater in the overview map to the right marks the location of these avalanches. Located on the equator, in Mars’ dry equatorial regions, if near surface ice was involved in this landslide it is now long gone.
Yet such flow features are not unusual in this crater, having been featured in a previous cool image. Nor are they unusual in the meandering 800-mile-long canyon dubbed Shalbatana Vallis that cuts through this crater. We are therefore likely seeing evidence of a time when either liquid water or glaciers were here and carving this canyon. Note too the hypothesized blue lake in Kasei Valles, believed to have existed in the distance past when an ice dam (indicated by the white line) held it in place. The evidence that suggests its existence suggests that water or ice was once in Shalbatana as well.
The black flows in Kasei Valles are hardened flood lava flows that poured through the canyon in mere weeks, long after it was carved.
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.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 23, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The image was labeled “Landslides in Orson Welles Crater” because the full photo shows at least two large and obvious slides, with the biggest shown to the right.
These avalanches are likely ancient because both have craters on them suggesting the material has not moved for a very long time. Yet when both flowed they did so almost like mud, the material moving downhill almost in a single blobby mass. Both have this look, as do many Martian landslides, which I think is why the scientists usually label them mass wasting events.
The white dot in 77-mile-wide Orson Welles Crater in the overview map to the right marks the location of these avalanches. Located on the equator, in Mars’ dry equatorial regions, if near surface ice was involved in this landslide it is now long gone.
Yet such flow features are not unusual in this crater, having been featured in a previous cool image. Nor are they unusual in the meandering 800-mile-long canyon dubbed Shalbatana Vallis that cuts through this crater. We are therefore likely seeing evidence of a time when either liquid water or glaciers were here and carving this canyon. Note too the hypothesized blue lake in Kasei Valles, believed to have existed in the distance past when an ice dam (indicated by the white line) held it in place. The evidence that suggests its existence suggests that water or ice was once in Shalbatana as well.
The black flows in Kasei Valles are hardened flood lava flows that poured through the canyon in mere weeks, long after it was carved.
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.
Readers: the rules for commenting!
No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.
However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.
Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.